


With a Bang

by minkmix



Category: Dark Angel, Supernatural
Genre: AU in the near future where Supernatural Verse and Dark Angel Verse are blended and intwined, Completed, Crossover, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Alec, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Sam Winchester Angst, Socially Awkward Alec, but it's actually justified
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-09 04:53:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 40,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15259845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkmix/pseuds/minkmix
Summary: In the near future of 2020, the US went from super-power to third-world country in a matter of days. Due to a terrorist attack every computer and communications system in America was damaged and all digital information was instantly erased, effectively throwing the country into utter chaos.* Alec, a genetically engineered solider escapes the lab he'd been created in and is trying to survive the real world while avoiding being caught and sent back to his makers. Everything seems as good as it's going to get but he wasn't anticipating the two strange men that come to his door.Two worlds collide and all three explode.*Thank you http://darkangel.wikia.com for helping with a summary that I was too tired to do.





	1. With a Bang

**Author's Note:**

> _'With a Bang' is completed and is followed by a few other arcs of this verse:_  
>  After Shocks (16 chapters) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/16973790/chapters/39893430  
> Not a Whimper (19 chapters) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/17001399/chapters/39967239  
> The Ripple Effects (12 chapters) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/18596824/chapters/44087722  
> Minor Tremors - (11 Chapters) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/18815989/chapters/44647327  
> These are all completed.  
> -minkmix
> 
> ps. Thanks Lomer!

Alec chewed on a pop tart and watched the rain drip on the fire escape.

It was better than listening to his faucets. Every one of them was making noise. The kitchen, the bathroom and even the shower head. He could handle some rusty water but these leaks were a little strange. The landlord had told him to lay off the magic mushrooms when he explained the problem over the phone.

He gnawed his food and frowned at the once white sink.

There was no telling what the red stuff coming out of the drains was, but it was making his apartment to start to smell like a slaughter house. Alec glanced up at his ceiling when he heard another skitter and scratch through the plaster. The vermin around here were getting a little too well fed. While he was fantasizing about large traps with pieces of cheese the single light bulb hanging in the living room began to flicker in and out.

Great. Alec tossed down his pop tart in disgust. A bio hazard in the pipes, rats in the walls and now a freakin' blackout? The power had been off for three days already this week and--

A knock on the front door startled him.

Instead of his elderly and annoyingly short landlord, there were two men in bad suits waiting in the hallway.

“Hello, sorry to disturb you,” the tall one on the left said. “We're here about the dead cat.”

Alec looked down at the gold badges with surprise. He didn't even know the FBI still existed.

“I-I don't own a dead cat--”

“Missing child?”

“No--”

“Uh...”

There was a moment of awkward silence that Alec felt a need to fill.

“I got some weird shit coming outta the drains, tho?”

“Bingo,” the agent on the right smiled. “The whole building has a leak and we think its coming from this floor. Mind if we come in?”

“It'll only take a second.” the other agent quickly assured him.

Alec rubbed at the back of his neck and wished he was wearing a shirt that came up a little higher on his bar code. He considered slamming the door in their faces but he decided to toss caution to the wind and let them in. Neither one of them had a plunger in their hands but that big black duffel bag might have something to kill the stink generating in his plumbing.

“Only for a few minutes,” he stepped aside and lied. “I gotta go to work soon.”

He could give a nickel tour of his two room place and they could take a water sample and get back to whatever desks they came from. Alec paused in confusion when they weren't following him to the noisy drip of his kitchen sink. The stuff that was previously dripping was now slowly gushing in a red sludge.

“Hey, is this a terrorist attack?” Alec guessed. “If it is you guys can tell me, I won't freak out the neighbors or anything-- h-hey, what's that?”

Both agents were standing by the closed door and were both holding flasks of... water?

The transgenic's eyes narrowed. So this was how it was. His mind raced with what he should do next. But instead of heading for his window all he could think was one thing. How the hell did Manticore track him down again? Alec stepped backwards with a cold sink of dread at the raised water bottles.

“Just stand still,” the agent with the green eyes said. “This won't hurt a bit.”

No agent or their chemicals were getting anywhere near him.

“It might,” Alec made two fists. “Just a little.”

 

 

~~~

 

 

 

 

He always dreamt the same jagged pieces of the same nightmare.

Flashes of fire. The weight of an antique revolver in his hand. Bright yellow eyes.

Alec woke up groggy.

He had no idea what the hell had happened but he knew he was still inside his own apartment. For one the smell of that red crap coming from the drains was as potent as ever. It hit his senses like a sledge hammer before he could even adjust his eyes. He could also feel the familiar lumps of his mattress under his back.

The power was out and the weak waver of candle light shone on the ceilings and walls.

“He's waking up.”

Alec could turn his head a little. The taller agent had taken one of the living room chairs and moved it near the bed. The man's jacket was gone with the white shirt rolled up to the elbows, a striped tie loosened around his neck. Alec wasn't prepared for the look the big guy was giving him. The transgenic expected coldness. Calculation. Rage. He expected pretty much anything but the soft gaze that was studying him curiously.

“'Bout damn time,” another voice mumbled from across the room. “Thought he was gonna sleep all night.”

The curt reply brought Alec back sharply into focus, adrenaline flooding his system and bringing his panic back to a keen edge. He still couldn't move. Making a small angry noise he willed all his muscles against any restraints that might have been put in place. But there were none. Alec's eyes watered in frustration as he realized his limbs were completely untethered. The only thing he knew of that could put him out commission this efficiently was a couple of souped up electric cattle prods. Waiting to feel the burning after effects of hot metal barbs, his confusion deepened when he detected none.

Alec began to shake as his panic swiftly descended into fear.

“It's okay,” came a soothing voice. “Calm down.”

Alec flinched violently when the callused palm rested on his forehead. He wasn't sure at first what the gentle whisper in his ear was, but he abruptly recognized that the agent was speaking a monotone stream of Latin. Against his will, he immediately felt sleepy again, the hammer of his heart slowing like he'd just been shot with a high grade tranquilizer. The murmur of the old language stopped and the man's warm hand withdrew.

“He looks like you, Dean.”

The tall man was speaking to the other agent Alec couldn't see.

“He looks like you from a while back,” the guy had a small smile on his face. “Kinda when you were a kid.”

“I never looked like that.”

Alec could hear drawers opening and closing. His things being searched. Seams being ripped and turned inside out. Books being removed from the shelves and dropped on the floor.

“Sure you did,” the man leaned back in his chair. “You just got old.”

“40 is the new 20, Sam.”

“Yer 41.”

“The golden party years,” was the response. “Life is just gettin' started.”

Alec hated how they were talking like he wasn't right there. But they weren't talking like government agents. They didn't even smell right. These men weren't dry cleaning and plastic. They were pistol grease and sweat.

“I gotta admit,” the one named Dean appeared in the limited field of Alec's vision. “There's a little somethin' around the eyes.”

Alec held his breath when the other man crouched down to look him in the face. He hadn't been paying much attention when the men had come to his door but now they'd won his full concentration. Staring into eyes as green as his own, he felt his muted terror start to bubble up again. This man had spent his years hard but not like Alec had. The transgenic grew up pale under fluorescent lights of a facility and now worked under the gray clouds of the city skies. This man's tanned skin was pleasantly lined from a lifetime out in bright daylight, the sun leaving pleasing creases behind from too many smiles. Dean leaned in closer and cocked his head like he was looking at an old photo.

“That pout ain't mine tho.”

The person he'd called Sam shifted uncomfortably behind him.

Alec's mind raced through all the possibilities for these men to be here. Although he'd never seen any X-series much older than himself he wasn't beyond believing that a few must exist. Some prototypes. Experiments. There was no knowing what Manticore had left to burn in its basement. Alec fought to speak, his tongue heavy and thick in his mouth.

“W-What are you?” he rasped. “Clone? Twin? What are the hell are you doing here--”

“It's funny,” Dean's mouth tugged into a smile. “Back in the day clones used to be only in the movies.”

Alec blinked uncertainly at the amusement in the man's features. There was also some cautious relief there that Alec didn't understand.

“But yer right kid. We're related.”

Rough fingers ran through Alec's hair and briefly locked in an easy grip. It took a moment for Alec to comprehend it wasn't an act of aggression. A thumb ran down the line of his jaw and held his chin in a strange gesture that made the transgenic go still.

“Hate to disappoint but you ain't my clone,” Dean said. “I'm just your uncle.”

The man with the green eyes slowly stood up.

Somewhere in the fog of his brain Alec had the dull revelation that Sam was younger than his friend if only by a little bit. The larger man's eyes glittered wet in the candlelight, grief drawing his weary expression into raw pain. His age seemed decreased further when his broad shoulders slowly began to shake and hunch over, his chin dipping down to his chest. Dean reached out to grab his shoulder, squeezing one arm hard enough to keep him upright in his seat.

“Take it easy, Sammy,” Dean said. “We found him.”

Alec dazedly wondered who the hell they thought they'd found. Their sadness baffled him and his mind began to spiral down into the thrash of unwanted dreams again. He whimpered when the scent of fire and the burning forest came back.

The dim room blurred into nothing.

Manticore flickered orange and red through the trees. The flames roared and sizzled as he tried to back away from its hungry glow, but he couldn't move a muscle. He just stood there as the smoke billowed ink black through the dark woods like hell on earth. Alec's numb body twitched as he struggled to keep hold of the last strand of his conciousness, but it was too late. The last thing he could hear before he faded away was Sam's quiet baritone, harsh and broken.

The strained voice kept saying a name over and over again like it should mean something. Alec breathed the word once, the image of a pale haired girl searing across his vision just before he slipped away. But he didn't recognize her.

He didn't even know anyone by that name.

Jessica.


	2. Breakfast at Tiffanys

Alec wasn't aware his refrigerator contained enough edible material to provide an entire breakfast.

Cans of vegetables he'd forgotten about in the cabinets were opened. Some powdered milk boiled into soup. A dried out potato in the drainer was even brought back from the brink. The cooking almost covered the smell lingering from all the drains. But not quite. Boiled food and the sickening aroma of the red gunk mixed together into something even worse that made the bile rise in the back of Alec's throat.

The stink didn't seem to bother the Winchesters very much.

A short introduction had included the fake surname. At least Alec assumed it was fake. Both the names they'd given him sounded plucked right out from the credits of a corny Western movie. As Alec had already deduced the men weren't federal agents, but they'd identified themselves as something else. They'd called themselves 'hunters'.

Whatever the hell that meant.

“You sure you don't want in on any of this?” Dean held up an unidentifiable piece of glop on his fork. “It doesn't taste like much if that helps.”

Alec tried to turn his head away but instead of achieving bold defiance, he just managed to sag sideways into the sofa cushions. They had propped him up on the couch after a small conversation about keeping him in sight. He could at least now speak without drooling all over himself, but it was still a struggle to keep the muddle of his thoughts together. Alec fought a huge yawn that ran down his spine and left his eyelids drooping. Sleep never came that heavy or for that long and it left him in a weird haze of exhaustion that he couldn't shake loose.

And he had vague memories of bad dreams. The blistering heat of a fire. A woman with gold hair.

Taking deep breaths in an attempt to clear his head, he watched the men eat silently at either end of the tiny kitchen table. The man with his green eyes had also let slip that the two happened to be brothers. Alec didn't see a whole lot of resemblance between them besides a blatant deficiency in olfactory receptors. However, he himself came from a large extended family that spanned the spectrum from indistinguishable to alien. And if there was one thing he hated more than close family get-togethers, it was being ignored.

“W-What did you do to me? Is it a n-neurotoxin?” he stammered. “Air dispersion... in t-the ventilation system-- nnnngh!”

Dean momentarily left his food to prop up Alec again. Avoiding a slow death by asphyxiation via pillow was okay in the transgenic's book, but the hands on his body made him grit his teeth. Alec's jaw twitched as his head was neatly arranged back on the armrest and his arms folded back across his stomach. Dean included an infuriating pat on the cheek before returning to his meal.

“Why can't I move?” Alec demanded. “W-What did you do!”

Dean glanced up at his brother, but Sam kept quiet with his gaze down on his plate.

“Nothing much,” Dean poked at his stir fried mush. “Just a little magic.”

“Magic.” Alec ran through his mental index of street drugs and came up short. “What's that? Some kinda Benzo?”

“For starters we used some holy water, witch hazel and some ground up corpse,” he explained. “Don't worry, it was no one you knew.”

Alec blinked when the weird joke didn't include any kind of smile.

“C-Corpse?”

“Well, to give credit where credit is due, Sammy here has a little to do with it too--”

“Dean.” Sam's fork came down hard enough to chip the plate. “That's enough.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Dean got back to eating. “The following is the sound of me shutting up.”

It also appeared that these guys were out of their fucking minds.

“So... you lived here long, Alec?”

Dean's vow of silence hadn't lasted too long.

Alec ignored the question and looked over at the sudden ring of his cell phone. The thing had been going off all morning and the fact that his guests had been completely oblivious to it was driving him crazy. Their dismissal of its urgency pissed him off even more than strangers making themselves at home in his personal private territory. He let the comfort of impotent outrage soak in and take over. It beat being terrified any day of the week.

“It's uh, real nice and all but...” Dean gestured towards the sparse furniture and the dusty chandelier. “You been staying here alone?”

“For 297 days,” Alec wasn't sure why he told him. It might have been for the simple reason that no one had ever asked him before. “And 10 hours.”

“Wow,” Dean nodded appreciatively. “That's extremely... exact.”

“Thanks,” Alec forgot he couldn't shrug but tried anyway. “Water runs most of the time and the cops don't come down here much.”

He experienced a strange self consciousness when both men looked out the window at the brick wall view. The morning traffic was at its peak on the street below, the blare of horns and screech of tires loud even through the glass. Their collective appraisal of his living conditions made his anger boil up again. Didn't these idiots see how rest of the losers in this dump of a town were doing? This crappy apartment was a like luxury high rise.

“You ever want to get out of this city?” Dean asked. “You ever think about headin' east, maybe out towards--”

“I came from out east,” Alec said. “It's real pretty out there.”

Alec waited for a reaction and the grim silence told him everything he needed to know. Any doubt that these men might not have known about the laboratories out in the Wyoming wilderness vanished in an instant. By the look on Dean's face, Alec understood that the Winchesters were completely aware of what Manticore had accomplished within its hidden facilities. Not just the expensive walking and talking bioweapons that had escaped into the world, but the whole deal.

“I got a look at your tat while you were checked out,” Dean sighed. “You should try a little harder to keep that thing under wraps. Gonna get you in trouble.”

Alec felt his face flush and his bar code burn like brand on the back of his neck. He didn't often run into people that knew all his secrets.

Even fewer that took a nice long look at them.

“You've had a tough night,” Dean tipped a bowl to get the last of the broth. “And correct me if I'm wrong, but you didn't sleep too good either.”

The cell phone on the counter started to go off again. Alec groaned as the ring tone cheerfully went on and on. Only one person on the planet would keep hitting redial after the 100th time of no pick up. Alec's eyes blurred again in frustration.

“I'm gonna lose my job,” he realized miserably. “Normal's gonna rip up my sector pass and eat it.”

“You have a sector pass?” Sam was the one that spoke this time. “Those are hard to find.”

“Yeah,” Alec muttered. “No shit.”

He didn't like how Dean practically glowed at the sound of some good news. The expression reminded him a little too much of himself.

Or an uncle.

Alec slammed his head backwards into the armrest and growled. He didn't have any uncles. No aunts or cousins. Hell, he didn't even have any parents. His seething glare turned on Sam. If they were all one happy family then did what did that make the big guy? Two long lost relatives. More like two lunatics fresh off the funny farm and apparently holding enough intel on X5s to bag every single one hiding in the city if they wanted.

They'd called themselves hunters.

He gnawed at his lip as the term suddenly made a lot more sense. Fighting to keep his anger from cooling back into fear, Alec decided to make a move. It was a long shot but it was worth a try at keeping his DNA intact and his vital organs off the black market.

“I can get you money.”

They both looked up at him this time.

“I-I know a guy,” Alec got ready to recite a list of all of Logan's emergency contact numbers. “He's loaded, he can get you anything you want.”

“We don't want anything,” Sam said.

Alec had been hoping that the big guy would stay quiet. Dean made more sense to him because anyone who talked a lot was also willing to listen. If someone was listening then he had a chance. But not with Sam. Alec knew it with just by one look in his eyes. With another surge of flustered aggravation Alec startled himself by successfully constricting all his leg muscles at once. Trying it again, he convulsed hard enough to fall off the sofa and onto the floor.

Unfortunately, that was where the journey ended.

“By the way, dude...” Dean tossed his brother the last of the bread. “Ya know he's gonna have to go to the bathroom eventually right?”

“He's dangerous.”

“Doesn't look that dangerous.”

“Neither do we.”

“We got these for now,” Dean pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “It'll be fine.”

Alec stared at the shiny steel apprehensively.

“And?” Dean broke into another grin. “Junior here has got himself a sector pass.”

For the first time since they arrived, Alec saw Sam's real smile. The taller man pushed back his empty plate and picked up Alec's noisy cell phone.

“We changed our minds,” he held it up. “We do need something from Logan.”

Alec's hope flared and faded all in one moment. He had a feeling these guys weren't going to be real interested in cash and the only other thing for sale was information. Suddenly the thought of dragging anyone else into this situation didn't seem like such a great idea. Sam pressed the phone into his numb hand, a warm grip lingering tightly on Alec's wrist before pulling away.

“You have 30 seconds,” Sam told him.

The rush of sensation flooding back into Alec's limbs made him gasp in surprise. He was too stunned to react much more than with a gaping wide eyed look. He tested his fists and felt the blood flow hot to every deadened nerve.

“How d-did you do that? What did you--”

“25 seconds.”

Alec fumbled with lethargic fingers on the keypad. It wasn't until the phone started ringing on the other end did it occur to him that he didn't know what he was going to say. But Sam spoke up to fix that problem.

“Tell him we'll be needing a car,” Sam said. “And plenty of fuel.”

Alec willed his mouth to move and hoped Logan was awake enough to catch it all.

“Hey buddy,” Alec did his best not to sound like he felt. “You got 20 seconds?”

It wasn't until a sleepy voice answered that Alec had realized he'd never given Sam the details of his contact. However, the man had called Logan by his name. There was a crackle on the line as Eye's Only security system spliced into the connection. No one dialed this code unless they were sinking fast and needed help. Alec looked up into Sam's eyes and felt a cold wash of unease.

He didn't know how the man knew exactly what Alec was thinking, but somehow the guy was reading him like a book.

“Let's not get 452 involved,” Sam warned gently. “Do you understand?”

Alec stopped staring long enough to hesitantly nod.

“Just concentrate on the car for now,” the man urged. “Trust me, Alec.”

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, the transgenic decided to do for now what he'd been trained for all his life.

He sucked it up and pretended to comply.


	3. It's a Morning Walk

Once they were outside Alec thought he was home free.

There weren't many people out on the sidewalks. A frigid rain made all the neon street signs brighter and the smell of all the engine exhaust thicker. The corner that the fruit sellers shared with the drug dealers was even deserted.

“How about some hot chocolate?” Alec twisted his cuffed wrists concealed under the wad of his coat. “I could use a little pick me up.”

Not shockingly, his armed guards ignored the request.

The power outages had hit everywhere and screwed up all the traffic lights. There might not have been many pedestrians but the cars were jammed bumper to bumper down every city block with horns blaring. Speaking of cars, Logan had informed him that theirs would be ready tomorrow morning. Eyes Only had been a little baffled by an emergency trip to Vancouver but pinged back a text message saying it would all be taken care of. Unfortunately for Alec, Logan was good at not asking a ton of questions.

“I once met a stripper named Hot Chocolate,” Dean told him. “It turned out she was a dude, though.”

As Alec debated on whether or not he should respond to that with a uncannily similar story of his own, they were interrupted by a bus rumbling to a stop at the curb. Before they could get out of the way, its disembarking passengers poured into their path.

Alec watched the Winchesters start to pick up the scattered shopping bags of a harried old lady.

Dean noticed him stepping backwards and tugged the transgenic back to his side.

“Just so you know,” he yanked on the hidden cuffs. “I got a few more pairs of these if we really gotta go there.”

When they started walking again Alec decided he had to wait for exactly the right moment to make a break for it. He wasn't afraid of a fight but he definitely had a healthy dislike for bullets. These men hadn't been discreet about the weapons they kept tucked inside their jackets. At least both of them had lost the cheap suits and had put on some real clothes. Alec privately thought scuffed leather and threadbare denim looked right on Dean, his boots broken in like his smile. Besides a hooded corduroy coat, his brother dressed the same. Alec tried to walk faster, but being wedged between the two men kept him at a pace he was having an odd difficultly keeping up with.

“Take a left up here, Sam.”

“It's a right.”

“The map said--”

“The map said Yesler and that isn't it.”

“Fine,” Dean grumbled. “When we get lost you can ask one of them trigger happy hover drones for directions.”

Alec was having trouble catching his breath.

He didn't want to admit it, but he still felt washed out. Not just tired, but completely exhausted. It was an effort just to keep one foot in front of another and not fall over. Alec let his next yawn come out as he glanced up at a familiar street sign. It was a good thing his escorts were packing plenty of heat. This neighborhood was so crappy the fire department wouldn't even venture down these blocks.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Alec felt like scaring someone else for a change. “The only thing you'll get out here is a raging case of herpes--”

“It's just a little further,” Sam told him without looking at him.

Alec had begun to notice the man named Sam Winchester doing a lot of that. That not looking at him thing. There was also no touching him unless Sam expressly was required to. Whenever possible all talking fell to Dean too. At first Alec had assumed the tall and quiet man didn't want to bother conversing with tainted goods. What kind of hunter wanted to chat with the second-hand merchandise anyway? However, despite Alec's efforts to remain professional about his hostage situation, he was starting to take the cold shoulder bullshit personally.

“This is a pretty nasty town, Sam.” Alec tried. “Even for a stone cold gangsta like you.”

“Seen worse.”

A heroin withered prostitute momentarily stepped into their path and tried to advertise by giving Sam a free grope. The sight of his disgusted reaction gave Alec another idea.

“Aw come on, pal. If yer not in the mood for the cheap stuff we can go dockside and for the little imports they ship in from Thailand.”

He expected a gun to slide under his chin or that large fist to make contact with his face. But Sam just kept walking.

Fast.

It turned out there was a reprimand after all for suggesting the kiddie porn, but just not from where he'd expected. Alec tried to dodge the stinging smack across the back of the head, but Dean was too quick. Expecting worse, Alec anticipated the next blow to be accompanied by the heavy handle of a pistol. In his haste to remove himself out of range, he stumbled forward on the cracked pavement.

“Settle down,” Dean caught him under the elbow before he fell. “Less lip and more walk.”

“That didn't even hurt,” The swipe at his head hadn't actually hurt at all and Alec was very confused as to why. “Not even a little.”

“I got steel toe boots on,” Dean gladly informed him. “Next time it'll be your ass.”

Alec started to retort but another wave of dizziness struck him. God, he was so tired. He could barely even see.

“Do you really know what I am?” His vision sickeningly whitened and took a full second before it cleared again. “Y-You don't scare me.”

They were too busy thwarting off more discount hookers to answer that one. But Alec dazedly acknowledged that the street was getting nicer than it used to be. A couple of the ladies were even accepting major credit cards. After some unspoken exchange with his brother, Sam broke off from them and vanished into the thin crowd. With the odds suddenly cut in half, Alec should have felt happy but instead he suddenly felt worse. His exhaustion shifted into something closer to pain. Another large chunk of his energy slipped away like Sam had been standing there holding it together.

“Wh-where's he going?” Alec felt his chest tighten.

“Not far,” Dean chuckled. “It's easier to move without, well... you.”

If Alec would have kicked in the smile on Dean's face he could have.

Clothes sopping wet with the rain, he followed as they weaved through the deadlocked traffic. Alec wished he hadn't refused breakfast because now he was so hungry he wanted to throw up. A loud horn went off right behind them and he almost jumped out of his own skin.

All he wanted to do was lay down and go to sleep again.

“I'm not who you're looking for. I-I'm not who you think I am...” Alec fought the childish urge to stubbornly take a seat so the whole entire world would just grind to a halt. He heard himself start to babble and didn't care how crazy he sounded. “You think you know me but you don't know anything. I'm not normal. I'm not like you.”

Dean nodded patiently as he moved them through another intersection.

“I'm gonna kill you.” Alec's panicked threat sounded pathetic but it was all he had. “You and your brother are gonna end up dead and its gonna be because of me--”

His lungs emptied when his back was slammed into a wall. Alec gasped for air, disoriented from the surprise move that had come out of no where. Dean was strong for an Ordinary and all that muscle came from a lifetime of fighting dirty. The man lowered his voice to something that resembled calm and reasonable.

“What do you wanna hear?” Dean tightened the fist wadded up in Alec's collar. “That I think yer some kind of unstoppable death machine, right?”

Alec dully realized that the man wasn't angry. He looked sad again. Like when his brother had cried.

“Wish I could tell you that your tale of woe was original kid,” Dean murmured. “But I've heard this song and dance before and it's a bunch of crap.”

Violence should have come next, but the hands holding him didn't move to strike.

“I'm not letting you run,” Dean eased him down gently from against the wet brick. “Not after all it took to track you down.”

Alec sagged in Dean's grip.

“You gotta listen to Sammy and me for now, okay? It's for your own good.”

For not being a real uncle the guy sure had the sound of a parental figure down. Alec dragged his sleeves over his running nose and stepped away. Dean meant what he was saying. He also finally had his guard down. Tensing heavy limbs, Alec decided it was now or never if he wanted to ditch this party. It didn't matter if he didn't make it far before he got shot in the back. He could run faster than any human being and disappear before he went down for good anyway. But his body wouldn't listen to his commands, every muscle was slack and almost useless.

“Do you believe me, Alec?”

The transgenic looked into the familiar green eyes and begrudgingly recognized the truth when he saw it.

“Do you?” Dean insisted. “Just a little?”

“No,” Alec lied.

He felt a brand new kind of tired all of a sudden. He knew it was his head telling him to wait it out for now. These people would have killed him if that was what they wanted. Alec hated it but everything they said felt like honesty. But it didn't mean what they were after was for any good. And Alec sure as hell wasn't going to make their task any easier with something helpful like cooperation.

What ever concession the transgenic decided to make must have shown up on his face because Dean reacted accordingly.

“Thatta boy,” Dean clapped him hard on the shoulder. "We friends?”

“Screw you.” Alec used his bound hands to wipe the rain out of his eyes. “Because this is what I do with my friends all the time. I break into their apartments looking for dead cats and then I drug 'em up and then you know what I do? Then I get out my handcuffs and drag them through china town--”

“Hey, are we at 10th and King?”

“Uh,” Alec referenced his memory of all unmarked street grids. “Yeah.”

“Then we're there.”

The Chinese restaurant with the chipped painted dragon facade was kind of infamous in the area. Not for having some killer chow mien but for having been long ago converted by the locals into a busy crack house.

“You were looking for this?” Alec was doubtful. “If you want drugs I know way better places to score.”

Dean shouldered open one of the doors and eased out his pistol.

Stepping thankfully out of the rain, Alec moved in behind him and watched Dean quickly clear the room with an out-of-date military maneuver. If Alec really wanted to he could have told the guy to relax. As far as his extensive senses could discern, they were all alone on this floor. Although Alec noticed his strained eyes took longer than usual to adjust to the dark, his power of smell seemed to be working just fine. The placed reeked of piss, garbage and sewage drain off. Everything a crack den should be and more. Chinese New Year decorations glinted gold and red over dusty counters of the former eatery, but everything else on the gutted first floor was gone. Alec knew that didn't mean the entire place was empty. All the coolest of the cool junkie cults kept all the fun stuff stashed in the basement.

“Dean!” It was his brother's urgent voice. “Over here.”

When Sam materialized out of the gloom Alec felt a strange sensation claw at the pit of his stomach.

It was as subtle as a slap in the face and just as pleasant, but he immediately felt the edge of his fatigue begin to recede. Alec knew of some biotechnology that worked with proximity of the target to carrier, but nothing like this. There was no denying that the closer Sam got to him, the better he felt. Stronger too. Staring down at his shaking hands in disbelief, Alec stood there for a moment before he realized he was being left behind. He hurried after them, rounding a corner and finding a stairwell that spiraled down into the black basement below. Both men clicked on flashlights and pointed the beams onto the messy spray painted walls.

“She's got to be down there,” Sam was already moving down the steps two at a time. “I can feel it.”

Alec was about to ask what he meant by that when he got a sharp poke between the shoulder blades. Reluctantly following Sam down the stairs, Alec figured that it must mean Dean was taking up the rear. More military training.

“She's so close,” Sam muttered in distraction.

“Never heard anybody so psyched to find a crack head,” The transgenic stepped on a glass pipe and neatly snapped its stem. “And who's she anyways?”

“She's no user,” Dean laughed a little. “This lady is a major dealer.”

“Whatever,” Alec wasn't about to be impressed by anybody who'd set up shop in a rat trap like this one. “I've met plenty of dealers.”

Dean stuck the flashlight under his chin and changed a grin into something ghastly.

“Not like Missouri you haven't.”


	4. Down the Worm Hole

In the year 2009 everything had changed.

Alec had only been ten years old for the largest terrorist attack in history but he remembered the lights going out like it was yesterday. He'd been locked away in Manticore at the time but they allowed their children to watch society's collapse from the safety of their own censored news casts.

The Pulse they'd called it.

It hadn't been a pandemic or even a nuclear device. Nope, instead of wiping out the human race with viruses and radiation, it had just been a bunch of hackers. They detonated an electromagnetic pulse high enough in the atmosphere to annihilate almost every computer and communications system in north America. When the entire network went dead a panic stricken population had swarmed to the big cities. The government promised that the law was still firmly in place within all major the metropolises. It was supposed to be where all the water and electricity were working and life could gradually return to normal.

But it all hadn't quite worked out that way.

“Alec?”

“I'm right here.”

Alec winced when the bright flashlight was pointed directly into his sensitive eyes.

“Keep up,” Dean warned from ahead in the murk. “Unless you wanna get lost in here.”

Alec wanted to tell him about a hundred other deeper holes he'd walked in with no fear of losing his way. However, instead of lagging back he picked up his pace to keep the Winchesters in sight. They were the ones with the guns after all. And besides, he hated to go on long walks all alone.

“This way,” Sam was whispering. “She knows we're here.”

They passed a fractured row of sewer pipes that had been converted into a catacomb for the deceased members of the underground den. Considering the turnover rate for the junkies, the makeshift tombs were crammed past capacity.

It reminded Alec of the crowded chaos of topside.

The post-Pulse reports of harmony in the cities was all a load of crap of course. Government reassurances usually were. But that hadn't stopped millions from fleeing overnight into spaces built to support less than half that number. Within a year the economy collapsed in on itself, the world market exploded and almost every country on the planet dipped to third world status. Needless to say, the rules didn't change.

They went flying out the fucking window.

It didn't take long for organized crime to come back in style. A handful of lucky corporations boomed into mega-conglomerates when suddenly left to operate in a competitor free environment. The shaky government quietly followed suit. That left the average citizen to get busy finding income and shelter wherever they could make it work.

And sometimes the two necessities went hand in hand.

“You holdin'?” a woman in a filthy red dress asked. “You got anything good?”

Alec had been asked that often enough but never down in a pit like this one. Sam ignored her, swinging his flashlight around like a divining rod. However, Dean was doing as well as Alec in the 'not staring' department. She only had one high heel shoe on and a plastic bag on her shoulder like it was a fancy purse.

“I don't have no money,” she told them as she ran greasy hands through what was left of her hair. “But I'll do you both. I got tested last year. I'm clean.”

Dean handed her a creased dollar bill.

It was a cozy crack den in a hideous kind of way. There were as many candles as there were people holding the smaller orange glow of their pipes. It lit the vaulted basement ceilings that rose and dipped in concrete arches like a weird church. An enormous drainage pipe thundered raw sewage like a water fall down into another tunnel that had caved in below it.

“There ya go,” Dean jerked a thumb at the idealistic scenery. “Now that's the kind of shit they should put in the Seattle brochures.”

“You holdin'?” the woman repeated with dull eyes.

Alec swallowed nervously when he realized her dress wasn't actually red. The fabric was just covered in old blood. He was more than happy when Sam finally picked a direction so they could start moving again. The air got harder to breathe as they walked deeper into the subterranean dwelling, the acrid pipe smoke curling and churning through the beams of the flashlights. All the swag burning up down here was laced with more household chemicals than even the transgenic could name.

“This is awesome,” Dean coughed harshly into his fist. “L-Let's get a timeshare here.”

“Do you see it?” Sam was making his way through the maze of people. “There it is.”

Alec wasn't sure what he was expecting. Perhaps a throne made of polished hubcaps surrounded by an entourage of the nobly homeless. Maybe some old piece of classic sculpture that used to sit in a park hauled down here for grand décor.

What he wasn't expecting was one smelly over sized refrigerator box.

“Your friend is in there?” Alec didn't try to mask the disappointment. “I'd say it'd be smart to check if she's still alive first but I think it's safe to say that smells like bad news-- hey, wait!”

Sam had lifted a dirty flap of cardboard and was crawling inside.

“Dean, make 'em stop!” Alec appealed to whatever sensibilities Dean might have owned that his freakish brother didn't. “Tell him to get out of there. This is where the crazy homeless people live! Not the nice normal dumpster kind you see upstairs everyday, oh no, these fuckers are 'stab you to protect their unicorn' kinda crazy-- Dean? Oh, come on.”

Alec was left standing alone with a stinky box. The thing was pretty big but not big enough to fit both Winchesters and some lady. Cursing the fact that his hands were still locked together, he dropped down on his knees and flipped up the flap door.

“Hello?”

He had to move in a few inches to comprehend why no one was immediately answering. The flap opened up not into a cramped abode, but served to disguise the entrance over a flight of narrow descending stairs. Alec slid down the first few steps and tried to look down through the metal grates to see where he was headed. By the time he reached the bottom, he knew from the scorching heat and reek of oil that he was in a boiler room.

The Winchesters were there, weapons stowed away and odd looks of relief on their faces. It smelled a lot better down here but the rank humidity made Alec's head swim.

“Missouri,” Sam said. “This is--”

“It's your Alec,” she breathed. “My God in heaven, it's him.”

A woman with dark skin and dark eyes rose to meet him. Despite the temperature she was wearing several sweaters and a red silk scarf wrapped tightly around her head. Spreading her ample arms wide, she made to embrace him like they were old friends and not complete strangers.

Alec backed away and fell onto a sofa.

Missouri had no throne but she had a battered leather couch. It was propped up against the massive furnace with a coffee table sitting beside it.

“You uh, you sell drugs here?”

“I sell lots of things,” the woman grinned. “But most times folks just pay me for some peace of mind.”

Alec stared at the rows of bookshelves neatly stacked with texts. The grimy floor was covered in an even more grimy throw rug, and part of the heating pipes had been diverted to a make-do kitchen. Besides being located in the belly of a crack house, the place was a lot nicer than to be expected. It was better than nice because it was also a secret. Alec suddenly saw the wisdom of the location and felt himself relax a little too. Until the woman sat down beside him and took him into her arms.

“My god, my god. I thought you were lost child,” her fingers touched his hands and face. “Lost to us, lost to your parents, lost to the world.”

“I don't think I'm the guy you're lookin' for, ma'am,” Alec had to admit that she did smell pretty good. Like fresh apples and baked bread. “These guys here, they've mistaken me for someone else. I-I don't have any parents.”

“I think the kid might believe in the stork," Dean snorted. "And cabbage patches."

“Shush Dean,” Missouri waved a hand at him. “Lemme work for a second.”

Alec watched Dean shrug and take a load off in one of the comfortable chairs nearest the glowing boiler. However, Sam remained standing. Crossing his arms over his chest, he watched them with an expectancy that made Alec shift uneasily in his seat.

“When were you born, baby?” she asked.

Alec looked uncertainly between Sam and the oddly imposing woman. He didn't know why the man's nod of approval made him feel better about talking to her but it did.

“I don't know my exact uh, birth date, but I do know my first set of trial vaccinations were in December 2000--”

“You don't know so let me tell you,” she went to the old kettle steaming on her stove. “You were born on November 2nd, 1999.”

“That's not possible,” Alec shook his head. “I've seen my records and--”

“Just listen for a bit child,” she poured the water into mismatched tea cups. “You were born on the same night your mother died.”

Alec stilled as an image flashed unbidden behind his eyes. It was the pale haired girl from his dreams.

Jessica.

“She died in a fire,” Missouri said. “And we all thought her baby died too.”

Sam's low voice interrupted them.

“I didn't know about you, Alec. Not until ten years ago,” He dragged a sleeve across damp eyes and sagged down into a chair beside his brother. “I didn't know you survived. No one could find you after that fire. There were no remains. There wasn't anything left--”

Dean's hand on Sam's arm quieted him.

“They must have picked Alec up that night,” Missouri nodded. “Packed him up and headed for the nearest gate.”

“Gate? What gate?” Alec yanked at his trapped hands in annoyance. Everyone was talking too fast and no one was making any fucking sense. “Everybody just shut up. Just stop for a second...”

“Ya know that thing they keep callin' The Pulse?” Dean asked. “It's all a lie.”

“I said shut up,” Alec ordered weakly.

“Electromagnetic Pulse. Hell's Gate. Same thing.” Dean held out his hands. “Your Manticore friends out in Wyoming? They built their lab on a nice big gate out there and they figured out the only way to open it was with kids like you. So they cracked a door to hell back in 2009. And kaboom.”

Dean made a sweep of his arms that didn't just mean the mess of the boiler room they were sitting in. The man meant the street above and the ruined city beyond. He meant the country and the entire shattered world.

“It almost worked,” Sam added. “But they didn't get it quite right.”

Alec found the first stair behind him and stepped up onto it. These people were worse than insane, they were delusional. They really believed the shit they were saying. And they wanted him to believe it too.

His head was aching with the heat but the sweat down his back felt icy cold.

“The Pulse was a terrorist attack,” he recited what he'd been taught since the age of ten. “I-It was a military act designed to disable every major infrastructure on the planet.”

“That's just a story,” Missouri chided. “And stories are made to sooth frightened children.”

“There was an attack!” Alec shouted. “Everyone knows that, it-it wasn't a gate. It-it was--”

“Okay, yes Alec,” Sam came towards him slowly. “You're right, there was an attack, but not the kind you 're thinking of.”

“Let me just show the boy,” Missouri was rolling up her sleeves. “It will make this all a lot easier.”

“I dunno,” Dean stood up and stepped in front of Alec in a protective gesture. “That shit you do? It's not nice. In fact, it kinda hurts--”

“Let her do it,” Sam said firmly. “It'll be okay.”

Alec decided not to hang around for any more votes on what should happen to him next.

“Well, uh...” he climbed backwards up the steps. “This has been a lot of fun but I think I really should get going now. Thanks for the hugs and everything, its b-been great but... I- I...”

Alec's legs folded underneath him.

“..shit..”

He wanted to get up. He wanted to start running up the stairs and get far away from here. But he couldn't move. All he could hear was his heart pounding in his ears as Missouri came closer. The warm smile of her apology wasn't much of a consolation as she began to rub her hands briskly together. As Alec's vision tunneled, the anticipatory gesture reminded him of a surgeon preparing for the cut.

“D-Dean?” Alec tried his last best hope. “Whatever she's gonna do, I-I dun wanna, I dun wanna do it--”

“It'll be quick,” Dean didn't sound very happy. “I'll be here the whole time.”

Alec couldn't see much but he could feel strong arms close around his body and lift him up off the stairs. It felt right to be held so tightly, like a fierce wind was about to blow.

When the dreams hit it took a moment for Alec to realize that he wasn't sleeping.

This time all his nightmares came out to greet him for real.


	5. Canned Peaches

Alec had been awake for a long time but he didn't want to open his eyes.

“That boy has some power in 'em,” Missouri yawned. “Have you been feedin' him?”

The transgenic somehow knew that the woman didn't mean food.

“A little,” Sam answered. “At first it was too keep him calm but now it's like when I'm near any of the others. I-It all turns on and it won't switch off.”

Keeping his eyes tightly shut, Alec felt his mouth tug into a smile.

A switch that wouldn't turn off was a tidy way of putting it.

Alec tried to move his body and wasn't surprised when he didn't have much luck. The synthetic shag rug Missouri used to cover up her bare floors itched his eyes and nose. Although it was quiet now, a soft ringing in his ears still sounded as shrilly as a tuning fork. It had been worse before. He had thought it was going to get louder and louder until his skull finally exploded from the roar. But like Dean kept promising in a whisper over and over, the noise finally started to go away. Dean had told him that he'd be able to move again soon too.

“Help me out here, Alec,” Dean said. “Come on, say something.”

The handcuffs were pulled free and the feeling was massaged back into Alec's hands and arms. As the blood was coaxed back through his muscles, the static sparking in his head gradually receded until it was nothing but a grating hum.

“Come on, dude,” Dean said loudly above him. “Rise and shine.”

There was a nervous edge to the man's voice that yanked at Alec deep under his daze. He knew he should respond somehow to let Dean know that he was still there. Whatever Missouri had done had left him still breathing and thinking. She had shown him so much. Some of it made sense but most of it was just a stream of light and noise that kept tumbling in circles in his brain. Alec tried to rub at his eyes but his hands were still being squeezed, callused thumbs working the center of his palms until they started to hurt. But all he wanted to do was stay in the dark behind closed eyes.

Unfortunately, Dean wasn't about to let him enjoy any oblivion.

“Recite your ABCs. Maybe gimme a date and a year?”

Alec felt his mouth move but no words came out.

“How about a location?” Dean suggested. “Hell, I'll settle for the word 'floor' right now.”

“H-He's burning up.”

“It's okay Sam, just get some more water.”

Alec felt his sweater being pulled off over his head. He didn't realize how blistering hot it was until the touch of cooler air began to evaporate the sweat on his skin. It felt good but he immediately felt his body begin to shiver, his system settling into some kind of shock.

“A-Alec?” Someone else took the sweater and propped it carefully behind his neck. It was Sam's arms that gathered up Alec's trembling body. His voice low in Alec's ear. “Please, open your eyes.”

Alec wasn't ready to open his eyes yet but he could talk.

“I saw her,” his throat was so dry. It felt as if he'd just been standing in the burning bedroom he knew had only been in his head. “She burned alive.”

Sam was silent.

“Look I'm real sorry, kid,” Dean's hands lingered on Alec's face, rhythmically smoothing sweaty hair away from his forehead. “When Missouri takes you for a stroll down memory lane it ain't never much fun.”

“We shouldn't have brought him here,” Sam said. “I shouldn't have--”

“It's done now,” Dean told him firmly. “All we wanted was some chance that he'd listen or he'd see. Now he got a little of both.”

Dean sounded tired. Even more tired than Alec felt which was quite an accomplishment considering the circumstances. Coming back to himself piece by piece, Alec automatically tried to shrug out of the grip of the two men holding onto him. He'd never felt so small in his life, the crushing embrace of his father keeping him in check like some little kid.

His father.

Alec felt his eyes burn.

Missouri had been quiet for so long Alec had thought she'd gone.

“The boy can believe it now or he can walk away,” she said. “Now it's all his choice.”

Alec wanted to start laughing at that one. All his life he'd been given plenty of choices all right. Listen or die. Fight or die. Kill or die. His function was to do nothing but make big important decisions like that all day long. Right now, he decided he would never open his eyes again. He could just stay here forever, laying here on the filthy floor buried with all the other crack heads and their rotting dead friends--

“Alec... hey Alec,” Sam shook him gently. “You have to wake up now and tell us what you saw. Can you tell us?”

He hadn't always been called Alec.

Before Max had given him his name he'd been mostly just called 494, but he'd had other more fleeting aliases. He gave them to guards. He passed them on to doctors. When he was in the field on an away mission he'd have as many names as minutes in the day. Names were like the pistols they gave him, pretty, cheap and disposable.

“Alec,” Sam's voice was louder now. “You have to tell me. This entire city might... this city might be in danger. We have to know what you saw--”

“Cut the kid some slack, Sam. Give him a few minutes before you start the 20 questions--”

“No.”

Sam sounded even more exhausted than everyone else did. Alec dimly realized that his father had something to do with all the dreams the lady had sent crashing through his brain. All the pictures and words filled up his head so hard and so fast he'd vaguely remembered screaming for it to stop. He'd heard Sam screaming too. If it hurt getting it all shoved in, Alec wondered what being pulled inside out must have felt like.

“You look like shit,” Dean sighed. “Why don't you take a walk?”

“I said no.”

Alec felt the iron grip around him grow impossibly tighter but the arms were shaking a little bit too. He almost opened his eyes then. He wanted to tell his father that he got it all now. He even wanted to thank him for that one night of safety before the man with the yellow eyes had come to take Alec away. The man with the yellow eyes had another name too. All the people of Manticore called him Lydecker. Colonel Lydecker pretended to be a human being. Just like Renfro, White and all the others. In fact, demons walked all over the planet hiding their eyes and looking normal most of the time.

With a wave of nausea, Alec knew that was now the truth.

“Get some fresh air, Sammy,” Dean told his brother. “If you can find any.”

Alec could breathe again when the crushing warmth reluctantly released him. He listened to heavy footsteps travel slowly up the metal grate of the stairs. After a few minutes the transgenic knew that they were alone. Even the bizarre woman named Missouri had drifted away, her scents and sounds too distant for Alec's groggy senses to detect.  
Sleep. That sounded pretty good. Alec let his consciousness dip back under into the waiting bliss of nothing.

“Okay Alec, that's enough. It's time to get up.”

That was an order. Alec knew how to listen to those. Kindness just confused him and patience didn't make any sense at all.

“I don't want to.”

“I know,” Dean sounded sympathetic. “Don't worry, I won't ask stupid questions like how yer feelin'. And I won't ask you what you saw. All you gotta do is open your eyes. Think you can do that one for me, pal?”

“No,” Alec breathed. “I can't.”

The last time he had looked at the world, everything had made sense. The Pulse had been a terrorist attack. His parents had been random genetic material spliced in test tubes.  
“I don't know how else to break it to you, dude. But this is it,” Dean was matter-of-fact. “This is your life now.”

Simple terms were easier to listen to than the cascade of images still flashing through his mind. Pictures of Hell and Heaven. The everlasting fire smoldering below. Another blinding light that burned above. There were rules and laws that ran contrary to everything Alec had ever known and it strained behind his eyes like a physical pain.

Alec blinked until his uncle came into blurry focus above him.

“I gotta ask you something, Dean.”

“Hit me with your best shot.”

“What was my name?”

“Huh?”

To know he'd had a name all along would make everything so different. A family. Parents. Every Manticore orphan's shameful little dream come true. Alec clung to some stupid hope that somehow Dean would know how impossibly important it all was.

“Sam... My father,” Alec felt his throat tighten. “Was there-- did he give me a name?”

If Dean knew then maybe everything would be okay.

“You mean before that other one?” Dean squinted to jump start his memory. “That 331845739494 crap?”

Alec usually wanted to hide from the sound of his barcode being recited from back to front. But Dean had said it like the string of numbers was ridiculous. A lifetime of gray anonymity crafted by Manticore was all dismissed with one easy grin on his uncle's face.

“Oh yeah,” Dean nodded. “Sure you had a name.” His hand slid under Alec's back to help sit him up against the sofa. The arm stayed there, firmly between his shoulder blades to keep him in place. “My brother named you after our dad.”

“That's good,” Alec meant that.

“You don't even know what it is--”

“John,” Alec picked it out from the scatter of his dreams. “John Winchester.”

“That's him,” Dean carefully studied his face. “You learned a whole lot tonight, huh?”

“It's a great name.”

“I dunno,” Dean laughed in a soft weary way. “Alec is a pretty good one too.”

Alec suddenly had a thought.

“There are a lot more of us. From Manticore,” Alec explained. “Are any of them real kids too?”

“Not many,” Dean shrugged. “Look, those other X guys might have done right by you and I respect that but your blood is here. With me and Sammy. You get that?”

“Yeah,” Alec's thoughts wandered absently to Max's mantra. It never made much sense to him until now. “Never leave your unit.”

Dean was looking at him with that bewildered caution again. Alec put him at ease the only way he knew how, and that was with a smile of his own. It wasn't exactly his best work, but as the tension drained from Dean's drawn features he knew it was good enough.

“Everything cool with you, Alec?”

“I thought you weren't gonna ask me stupid questions.”

“Drink this.”

Alec shirked back from the rusty can Dean was holding in his face.

“What is it?”

“Canned peaches,” Dean picked out a pale sliver and ate it. “Come on, its the best kind.”

It was thick and syrupy, but it was the greatest thing Alec had tasted in a long time. After they'd eaten them all, Dean put another full can in Alec's hands. As he ate Alec felt himself reluctantly begin to relax. Wiping the sticky juice from his hands, he poked around for any more food Dean might have stuffed in his jacket.

Alec paused when he heard a strange sound.

Tilting his head, he heard another small noise come from up above. The third was enough to shudder the floor and catch the attention of the non-transgenic in the room. Crawling into a crouch next to Dean, they both waited silently as the next dull explosion was accompanied by all the people upstairs beginning to scream.

“That can't be good,” Alec said quietly. “That can't be good at all.”

Dean got his jacket and pulled out his gun.

“Doesn't sound like weapon fire,” Alec listened to the next boom that rattled the ceiling and shifted the flimsy stairs. “These are impact tremors. Maybe low altitude incendiary bombs--”

“It's not a bomb,” Dean said flatly. “It's a demon.”

“W-what?”

“They found us,” Dean tossed the can aside and was pulling Alec to his feet. “We gotta go.”

Alec half expected to end up on the floor again but his body took his weight. With one shaky step, he felt his full range of motion had arrived all back where it should be. It felt a little on the weak side but it was enough to get him the hell out of here. He straightened his back as another impact concussed directly above their heads, raining down plaster and buckling steel support beams.

“What about that lady?” Alec looked around the boiler room and the unlit corridors that led off in every direction. “A-And Sam?”

“Don't worry 'bout them,” Dean shoved Alec's sweater into his arms and started pushing him towards the nearest tunnel. “Can you run?”

Alec decided to save his smirk for a later date because it was time to haul ass.

They'd barely cleared the room before it collapsed in a deafening crash behind them. Alec tried to blur but his body settled into a sprint that worked just as fine. Dean was keeping up with him until the next boom struck, knocking them both off their feet in a rain of debris. Alec got back up and headed back through the hanging dust, wondering exactly what kind of weapon a demon must carry around. Whatever it was it was high powered and packed a punch.

He staggered to a stop when he realized there was no one following along behind him in the haze.

“Dean?”

The tunnel was silent.

Alec stumbled over slabs of cracked concrete that had broken loose from the walls.

“Dean!”

There was no answer but the chaotic cries of the panicked crowds one floor above. Hundreds of people were all trying to squeeze through the same blocked exits to get away from the monster that had entered their domain. Alec's ears picked up the sound of someone moving in the dark nearby. For a second he felt a stark relief at the sound of a single set of footsteps rushing towards him. But Alec quickly realized that the tread didn't belong to Dean. It was Sam that appeared out of the murk, pistol raised and chest heaving. He looked ready to fight whatever had knocked down half the building and anything else that came with it.

But Alec somehow already knew the creature Sam had come looking for had already come and gone.

And it had taken Dean with it.


	6. Can't Pick Your Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This goes to GLWilliams97 for most fun comment of the day.

They had spent all night scouring through the wreckage of tunnels that ran alongside the massive boiler room. Alec expected some emotional display of some kind when the flashlight found the woman named Missouri. But Sam stepped right over her broken body without so much as a commemorative sniffle.

Her silk scarf looked like a brilliant slash of blood across her chest, her eyes wide and seeing even though the warm light within had gone. After checking the pulse at her wrist, Sam simply moved on. Alec hadn't exactly been in love with the woman but he didn't really want to see her smeared like road kill under some dry wall either.

“Shouldn't you uh, I dunno, lament or something?”

“It's okay,” Sam mumbled. “Missouri's over 300 years old. She finds new bodies all the time.”

Sam noticed Alec's stare and attempted to reassure him.

“She'll be just fine. Besides, it's always a body no one wants.”

Alec thought of the fresh new stash of corpses that filled the abandoned building and said nothing more. There were a hundred more unexplored passages that went in every direction around them. Alec wasn't sure how they were going to do some serious tracking without some equipment but there didn't seem to be any other choice.

“Let's try down this way,” he pointed. “The water doesn't get real deep and I think it might have some access out towards the river.”

Sam silently pushed past him and continued the way he was going.

“You disagree. Okay, that's fine,” Alec let his frustration flare into tight fists at his sides. “We can go this way if you want but it's gonna drop a couple hundred feet into some water processors in about dozen yards--”

“How will your friend contact you about the car?”

Alec had to take a moment to shift gears. Logan would contact him the only way he could. By cell phone. And that cell phone was currently sitting all by its lonesome in the apartment where Alec had left it.

“He'll call me,” Alec jogged to keep up with the man's stride. “Maybe leave a message.”

“Let's go,” Sam was climbing a utility ladder that would bring them street level. “It's almost dawn.”

The search appeared to be over.

“How will the car help find Dean?”

Sam didn't answer as he was busy shouldering open the heavy manhole cover above him. Alec wiped his muddy hands on his crack-den covered clothing and wondered if anyone topside would even give him a second look. If they were headed back to his place anyway he could take a nice long shower while waiting for word on a vehicle and gasoline. Some cold water from the frosted tap would be better than spending one more second smelling like burnt dope mixed with sewage.

He took another look around the dim tunnel before grabbing a rung of the ladder and hauling himself up.

“So Dean is dead then huh?” Facts were facts and causalities were nothing new in Alec's life. But this one seemed different though. This one didn't seem finished yet. “He was right next to me, I don't know what happ--”

“He's not dead,” Sam said. “There are people... demons... who know who we are. Now they know who you are and they want to stop us.”

“Like hunters. Kinda like you?”

“No,” Sam gave him a small look. “Not like us.”

Sam slammed the metal cover back in place and glanced up and down the empty street where they'd surfaced. Dawn was turning the black sky to gray and the icy rain had eased off to a trickle. Quickly finding north, Sam started moving through a narrow alleyway and straight towards the sector where Alec lived. The transgenic had to hand it to the guy. After a busy night he still had a firm grasp on his sense of direction.

Speaking of long nights...

Alec tried to stifle the jumble of images and sounds that kept flashing nonsensically behind his eyes. Everyone and their dog could ask him all the questions they wanted, but for now he couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. The things Missouri and Sam had force fed into his brain just left him with a raging headache for now.

He'd worry about what it all meant later.

“So if he's not dead?” Alec didn't know how Sam's logic equaled to Dean being alive and breathing but he was willing to play along. “Where is he then?”

“Still in the city. They'll keep him until they decide to tell me what they want,” Sam laughed a little. “And then we'll see.”

“What's so funny?” Alec honestly wanted to know. “If there's a joke here I missed it.”

“We've been picking them off one by one for years,” Sam pushed aside a moldy baby stroller into a heap of bursting plastic garbage bags. “Dean always said their team was way overdue to score.”

He felt his eyebrows raise in consideration. For ordinary humans the Winchesters must be pretty hard to splat if they'd been doing guerrilla warfare with the likes of demons for an extended amount of time. But it it didn't make any sense. If these mortal hunters were such experts and stayed alive for this long how the hell did Dean get swiped so easily--

Alec abruptly stopped climbing between the overflowing dumpsters.

“It was because of me,” he said. “Dean was looking out for me and he got himself in trouble.”

“He's not dead,” Sam repeated. “Now come on.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Alec kept his head down and decided to keep his trap shut until he got home. He knew well enough what the likes of Manticore did with its prisoners. If these demons were made of the same stock he half hoped Sam was wrong.

 

 

 

“Is this really necessary, sir?”

Alec thought his days with the annoying handcuffs were over but apparently they weren't. As soon as they had made it to home sweet home it was time for lock down again. Sam had pulled out a couple more pairs of the things out of his coat like a lame magic trick.

“Sorry,” Sam leaned against the bathroom window like he was getting a view through the frosted glass. “Hope you don't mind the company.”

Alec could have told Sam a lot about growing up in Manticore. Frequently there wasn't a single moment where his every action wasn't recorded under a live video feed from six different angles. Having just one armed guard present while taking a leak was the height of personal privacy.

“It's no problem,” Alec reassured him. “Sir.”

“Please stop calling me 'sir'.”

“Sir is a term that denotes respect and--”

“Yeah, I know all about it.”

“Well,” Alec kicked the handle to flush the toilet. “What am I supposed to call you then?”

“What's wrong with Sam?”

“Sam is fine with me,” Alec shrugged. “I think... I wasn't sure what uh, you know--”

“I understand that Dean and I mean nothing to you no matter how closely we happen to be related. For now I'd just like it if... if we could try to just be friends okay?”

Friends.

Alec rattled the friendly length of chain that connected his wrists together. The restraints gave plenty of leeway to accomplish every day life tasks but it was just enough that it didn't make much sense. Alec could do a lot more damage with a sturdy foot of chain than with his bare hands.

“Hey man, that sounds great to me,” Alec muttered. "I love making new friends."

The Winchesters seemed to know a lot about X5s but in Alec's opinion they were getting a little too much at ease around transgenics. Alec flexed his fists and decided to pursue an uncomfortable subject that would distract the man. The bettering of the odds had eluded him the night before but he was feeling a lot better today. His jaw clenched as he hid the urge to grind his teeth. As much as he wanted to help out his new little family Alec liked to keep his own bases covered.

Or at least have some control over matters regarding his own life.

“I thought it might be kinda weird ya know. Callin' you dad," Alec moved back into the living room. “I mean yer not that old or anything. Hell, you must have been a kid yourself when I came along-- yeah wait, was I planned? You know a mistake of passion? A happy accident?”

Sam's face flushed red as he tried to look interested in the uneven planks of the floor.

“I knew it!" Alec brightened despite himself. “I always wanted to be a mistake.”

Sam looked at him sideways.

“Being a fancy blueprint for death and destruction doesn't have all the perks one would imagine,” Alec mumbled. “Being born for no good reason is the best news I've heard in my whole life.”

Sam took a seat and drove Alec a little more nuts by not saying anything else further about it. Alec's anger was coming along nicely and far as he could tell his fear was taking the back seat for now. He liked it when his vision started to tinge a little red around the edges. It meant he was going to lose control.

“Do you really know what I am?” Alec prodded. “All the really good stuff?”

“I've done my research,” Sam put his feet up on the table. “After the Pulse a lot of records came out of the woodwork. It's how I found out you were still alive.”

Alec could see Sam was holding back. Ever since the moment they'd met all the man did was avoid Alec in every way he could. Truth be told, Alec wanted to do some avoiding himself. The pain in Sam's eyes every time he attempted to acknowledge his grown child wasn't getting easier to watch. But Alec didn't really feel much like letting the poor guy off the hook. Just because Sam wasn't in the mood for chatting didn't mean there weren't things to discuss.

Like Alec's former life as a trained assassin.

“Did any of those files tell you what I used to do for a living?”

Sam's careful look faltered slightly.

“It's not your fault, Alec,” he said softly. “None of it.”

Alec decided to do something just to get that damn look off Sam's face. That worried caring look that held nothing but concern. Did this guy know who he was carrying around all this compassion for? Trudging through this shit hole of a city just to find Alec? Losing his brother to fuck knew what? Alec didn't even feel the weight of the sofa as he flipped it cleanly from the floor and sent it crashing into the gigantic plasma television.

Sam looked stunned and that made Alec happy.

It was just a small piece of the violence he was capable of. It felt good to bring it out in the open like a dirty secret. Sam slowly got to his feet and spread his arms out wide in a gesture of compliance. Alec growled at the exasperating calm that had settled back in place.

“I told you Alec, I understand what they did to you. I know what they've made you do and it's not your--”

“I get a little cranky when people think they know me,” Alec got ready to do some more damage. “And you don't know anything about--ah!”

Alec blinked in confusion when everything suddenly stopped.

One moment he was going to show Sam how the stereo system could fit out the window, and then the next moment he wasn't doing anything at all. In fact, he was pressed up against the wall so hard that the plaster was creaking into hairline fractures from the impact of his body. He struggled to break loose and realized Sam had come to stand directly in front of him.

Some kind of energy was radiating off the man like the shimmer of a mirage.

“..I knew it... you're from psy-ops...” Alec stammered. “...you ..you gotta be one of those units from the paranormal department--”

“Manticore didn't make me,” Sam's hands slipped over Alec's shoulders and the pressure slowly ceased. “That place was built to make other people like me.”

Alec slumped down to the floor as the last of the invisible energy dissipated.

His rage draining away, he sat and looked at the chain hanging between his hands. He wasn't sure which option was more despicable. The purity of science crafting him into what he was or evil incarnate doing the same. And for some reason Sam was trying not to smile. It was a little on the unhinged side but Alec himself had been known to burst into a few bouts of hysterical mirth on occasion. At the sight of his shattered television and the large dent in the wall he felt an unwanted grin coming on too.

Alec tried to stow it and failed miserably.

“What's so funny now?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Sam,” Alec dragged himself up onto his feet. “If there's ever a time to be keeping funny shit to yourself, now is not it.”

“You remind me of, well...”

“Your brother?” Alec guessed. “Yeah, I remind me of him too. Hey, are you sure your brother wasn't getting busy with your-- okay, okay, I take it back. I'm sorry! It was just an idea that I thought you should consider. I apologize. Just relax over there in that chair far away and uh, forget I ever mentioned it--”

“When you get angry like that,” Sam rubbed at the space between his eyes. “You look like Jess.”

“Oh.”

Alec felt heavy again, the fierce energy in his muscles vanishing with what was left of his anger.

“So uh...”

“What?”

“Is there anything on me that looks like you?”

Sam glanced over at the rest of the immaculately clean apartment. Alec's burst of rage hadn't touched the stacks of the Greek classics tightly packed on every available bookshelf and neat filing system for a few hundred other paperbacks. The transgenic shifted uneasily when Sam took a look at the neatly made bed and all the ironed laundry hanging in the arranged closet.

“Actually,” Sam assured him. “I think you got more than enough.”

The cell phone on the table began to ring.

Logan always did have a great sense of timing. Alec exchanged a look with Sam to make sure it was permissible to go answering his own phone. Clicking it open, Alec expected a voice on the other end, but instead he got a buzz of an old modem. To his surprise, a file started to download a small section of the city map across the phone's display. Alec studied the message for the code marks Eyes Only usually included in his transmissions but strangely found none.

"What's the problem?" Sam asked.

"It's not Logan," Alec held up the phone. "It's someone else."

"Hang up," Sam ordered. "I don't wanna miss that call."

"You don't wanna miss this one either."

Alec grinned.

"It's from Dean."


	7. It's Nice In an Apocalyptic Kinda Way

Alec followed Sam across the busy intersection and kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

Whatever that could possibly mean nowadays.

After a few blocks of back tracking they broke the cover of the alleyways and hit the main avenues to make better time. Alec wasn't even sure who he was looking to hide from any more. Manticore were as elusive as ghosts and they were just as good at making people disappear. He nervously kept waiting for something or someone to materialize in their path to stop them. But besides a few taxi wrecks steaming in the downpour of rain, everything in town was business as usual.

“Are we even getting close?” Sam glanced down at his watch as the traffic light hung red.

“Yeah, yeah, there's only .3 miles to go.”

Alec pulled up the collar of his coat and rubbed at wrists sore from chafing against cinched metal for a few days. Living life handcuff free sure did improve his mood even if he was soaking wet again.

“Did we pass Madison?” Sam asked. “I thought we had to cross Madison.”

“What's a matter?” Alec smirked. “You tired already?”

Alec had to make some jokes about the older man's stamina because it wasn't at all what he'd expected. Most ordinary people he knew got winded after running ten city blocks but not this one. Traffic had forced them down to a walk but they hadn't slowed much. Alec didn't consider himself a small guy by any means but keeping up with Sam's long stride required him to do some double time. At least when Dean was around he wasn't forced to trot two steps behind like a circus pony all alone.

“Do you have any deteriorating joints?” Alec had to also admire the guy's threshold for bullshit. “I could carry you if you'd like--”

“I thought taking those manacles off would make you faster,” Sam muttered. “I wanna get there before next year if you don't mind.”

After the 'sofa and wall' incident the handcuffs had been removed without any further discussion. While Alec appreciated getting rid of the things, the absence of physical restraints brought on a new level of caution from his keeper. But he was perfectly fine with Sam supervising his every step. After the trick with freaky invisible powers Alec was feeling the need for overt vigilance too. And to be honest he was also feeling more at ease than he had in a long time. It was always a good feeling to know exactly where you stood. Even if it was on the edge of a cliff.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me, I got you something.” Searching his jacket, Alec stilled his hand when he saw Sam tense. “Don't freak out. I-It's just an air filter.”

Sam reached into Alec's coat and pulled out the plastic mask. “I see,” he turned it over in his hands. “What's the occasion?”

“The sector we're goin' to isn't really a safe place to do a lot of breathing in,” Alec explained. “Actually, it's not a safe place do be doing anything. Like walking, or standing or being--”

“Where's yours?”

“I've got some built-in immunities,” Alec patted his chest. “Call 'em Manticore upgrades.”

“I'll keep it for Dean,” Sam tucked the mask in his back pocket. “I've got some built-ins myself.”

Before Alec could ask what that meant, Sam's arm came out and stopped him from turning the corner. Alec swore at the annoying appearance of a police barricade. Judging from the bodies, yellow tape and bored ambulatory staff, it looked like a shooting.

“The whole block is closed,” Alec said. “The gangs must be having a national holiday or somethin'.”

“Forget it,” Sam was already headed up the fire escape. “We'll cut across.”

“No, wait!” he hissed. “It's no good that way either.”

Alec enjoyed unlawful shortcuts just as much as the next guy but the alternative route across the roof tops wasn't going to get them anything but a crappy view. Unsure of what to do next, Alec tried to think fast before Sam's waning patience ran out.

“Look, we can use the sewer,” Alec reasoned. “It'll take some time but--”

“I have a better idea.”

Sam was studying the tall fence that separated them from the next sector. Large red placards warned of a lethal voltage and mandatory life term sentence for border violation. Alec swallowed nervously as Sam gave the chain link an experimental poke before deciding it was safe.

“The current is switched off,” Sam nodded. “We just gotta climb fast.”

Alec didn't wait around to see if any one of the hundreds of cops across the street noticed Sam throw his coat over the barb wire. Scrambling up behind him, he just hoped no hover drones patrolling the border spotted them for target practice. But after just a few scrapes and a soft landing in some garbage bags, Alec was surprised to find they had arrived without notice to their desired destination.

Terminal City.

All the city maps called the sector by its numerical designation, however its real name was the one given to it by its sparse inhabitants. Alec thought 'terminal' was a perfect word for the place. Every gutted gray building and deserted street reminded him of something lingering on the edge of demise.

“What the hell happened here?” Sam grumbled. “I didn't think this town could look any worse than it already did.”

“Pretty isn't it?” Alec side stepped the purified remains of a dead dog. "In an apocalyptic kinda way.”

“Which way do we go?”

Alec took the lead but they didn't get very far. The trains tracks that ran across the sector were still operational and they had shown up just in time for for the flashing gates to come down. A long freight train was rumbling slowly through and there wasn't much they could do besides wait for it to go by. Alec wandered the curb until he found the least filthy patch of pavement to sit on.

The train shook the ground pleasantly under his feet as he thought of things he could say. He detested silences and never had a problem annihilating a perfectly healthy one.

“I haven't been here in a while,” he winced at the cold water soaking through the seat of his jeans. “But I did a lot of business down this way when the business was good. The cops almost never come around here.”

Terminal City had once been crowded with industry looking for a cheap foot hold in the booming pharmaceutical market. But until all the power had gone out no one had really known how much toxic waste was being illegally stored in the basements or pumped out into the ocean. Now the sector was quiet but hardly empty. It had been deemed a hazardous zone to keep people out, but its seclusion was also an attraction. It was a great place to hide something you didn't want found.

“What do we do when we find Dean?” Alec was no stranger to tactics but Sam hadn't offered any so far. “Can we shoot these things? Do they die like... people?”

“You just get me to the coordinates Dean sent,” Sam had to be loud to be heard over the passage of the train. “And then you leave the rest to me.”

Alec rolled his eyes. Fat chance of that happening.

“So what kind of business?” Sam asked.

“Huh?”

“You said you did business around here.”

“Oh. Yeah. I sold drugs mostly,” Alec watched the bleak scenery blink between the freight cars. “But when I can get my hands on some guns I can always make some serious bank around here.”

“You distribute drugs and weapons?” Sam was looking at him uneasily. “To anyone?”

“No, of course not,” Alec snorted. “They gotta be able to at least pay for it.”

He decided not to tell Sam that his last business venture hadn't been anything too exciting. In fact, he hadn't moved a gun in over year. The most recent piece of business had been concerning a crate of parakeets. He had thought the things were kind of neat actually. Alec had kept a blue one in his apartment until it flew off.

“You sell anything else?”

Alec debated on the telling him about the iguanas but decided that the small pet trade in general didn't seem very bad ass.

“Sometimes I sell fruit?” Alec tried. “But its really rare and expensive fruit. You know, like oranges.”

He gnawed at his lip as he watched Sam toss a rock at the slow moving train.

“But I can make plenty of money,” Alec insisted. “Like last month? Last month I really cashed in.”

Sam tossed another rock hard right at the rails.

“Ya see there was this guy Skippy Jones and his crew? They all got mowed down by an enraged gang of Hispanics with AK-47s.”

Sam's brow creased in confusion.

“Well, thats what the papers said,” Alec shrugged. “I was standing right there and the 'gang of enraged Hispanics' was just one drunk cop and he was white. He needed a witness and well, I needed some rent so--”

“A few more gigs like that and you wouldn't have to work for that delivery service at all,” Sam watched the turnstile lights blink lazily from red to green. “A guy can make a good living running guns and being a paid witness.”

Alec was about to wholeheartedly agree until he caught the look on Sam's face.

“W-Wait. I-It's not like that,” he hated it when he stuttered because stuttering only happened when he knew he'd messed up. “I don't go lookin' for that stuff. The drugs and all that? I only used to push that stuff when I first got out. I-I had to make some money and I didn't want... I didn't want to fight for it.”

Sam's hard gaze softened into sadness. It made Alec feel like punching something.

“If a wasted cop with a gun tells you that you saw something, well then you shut up and you say you saw it,” Alec angrily dragged a sleeve across his eyes. “Y-You know what I mean?”

He got up off the curb and fought the urge to turn around and take off. He wasn't sure what he'd said wrong but he knew he had fucked it all up. It made Alec feel stupid all of a sudden. Stupid and angry. He didn't need anyone else sitting in the jury box deciding what he did was good enough or not. He could do it. He would leave. Alec could drop his new family like a burning bag of dog shit and blip off the radar never to be seen again.

Sliding a hand into his pocket, he touched the phone with the message stored in it.

Dean was in trouble because of him. His flesh and blood had called for help and was waiting for him somewhere nearby. The freight train finally passed leaving a cloud of black smoke in its wake. Smothering his fizzling anger, Alec took a deep breath and got ready to lead Sam the rest of the way.

But his father didn't move.

“I'm sorry, Alec.”

“Hey, whatever. No problem,” Alec scrubbed his sleeve under his nose. “It's not far now, it's just around the corner--”

“Be quiet for a second,” Sam's shoulders sagged as he rubbed a hand over his chin. “I've had ten years to learn everything about you but you're right. I don't know a single goddamn thing.”

Alec saw what appeared to be apology in Sam's damp eyes.

“This city could have made you into ten different kinds of a bastard,” Sam said. “But you didn't let it.”

Slightly stunned, Alec suddenly stopped feeling stupid and started feeling something else. And it felt suspiciously like giddy pride. Sam thankfully spared him the task of responding by pulling out two semiautomatic handguns from his jacket. He checked the magazines before tossing them both to Alec. So much for keeping the transgenic out of the fight.

“Does this mean I get to kill some bad guys too?”

“It means I want you to be prepared if this demon has humans working for it.”

Alec did his best to stifle his mortifying smile.

“They know we're coming so we walk right in,” Sam handed over extra ammo. “You stay behind me and you stay quiet.”

“What are you gonna use?” Alec tested the weight and checked the sights. “Harsh language?”

Sam answered that one by pulling out another weapon from his supply. Alec went cold at the sight of it and involuntarily took a step backwards. Sam removed the old revolver from a cracked leather holster and carefully spun its chamber. Images of the antique weapon flashed from Alec's dreams, pictures and noises coming in and out of memories that weren't his. He shook it off and concentrated fiercely on the sound of Sam's boots crunching in the wet gravel beside him.

He had to focus.

He had to get ready to fight.

“By the way?” Alec added. “You were right on the money with the cuffs and the jedi mind tricks. If you hadn't knocked my ass out when you first met me I'm pretty sure I would have killed you.”

“Like my dad used to always say,” Sam conceded with a sigh. “Sometimes it doesn't hurt to be right.”

The warehouse on the corner wasn't lit but Alec could smell fresh engine oil. With a quick look around he spotted fresh tire tracks leading right up to its loading ramps. There were all sorts of signs of life. Alec allowed his mind to settle down into the hyper-aware state of combat readiness. A calm took over even as adrenaline began to saturate his system in anticipation for a fight.

“Remember what I said,” Sam whispered. “And avoid any pentagrams or circles.”

“Sure thing,” Alec clicked off the safety on his right and then his left. “Wait, hold up a sec. Did you just say pentagrams and circles?

“On the floors,” Sam explained. “Check the ceilings too.”

“What the hell are you talking about--”

But Sam had already wedged open the double doors and was going inside. Following close behind, Alec took a deep inhale of the interior's musty air. It was dark but he could discern the storage place was wide open. It was nothing but three stories straight up of cracked windows flecked with black mold. Rain was dripping down through the roof, making the rotted concrete floor one wavering shallow puddle. Alec wasn't expecting to be greeted with flood lights and diabolical laughter but what he got instead wasn't even on the list of possibilities.

The hot chick lounging in a folding chair gave them both a welcoming smile.

“Howdy, boys,” she waved with her fingers. “Sorry to drag you out in this nasty weather.”

“W-Who the hell is she?”

Alec realized he'd broken one of the two rules Sam had given him but he couldn't help himself.

“It's not a she,” Sam muttered in disgust. “It's a Meg.”

 

tbc


	8. We All Have Our Demons

Alec's initial impression of the all mighty killer demon was that she looked kind of bored.

“'Bout time you got here,” The demon named Meg got up out of the folding chair and stretched like a cat. “I didn't even have a pack of playing cards handy.”

He also thought the pale woman was too short and thin for her clothes. Nothing on this woman belonged to her. Not her baggy red leather jacket, or the gold ring that hung heavy on her middle finger. She flicked at pale hair that had been recently and indelicately hacked short to stay out of her eyes. Alec knew a thief when he saw one and this chick was the real deal.

“You're looking good, Meg,” Sam had his revolver pointed level with her heart. “A lot better than the last time.”

Alec watched her drag hands over breasts and shoulders in an aggressive self caress. The greedy fascination she held for her own skin would have made him uncomfortable if it hadn't been slightly arousing.

“Thanks,” she lingered over the span of her hips and thighs. “It gets harder every year. Not much to choose from when the pickings get slim.”

Alec snapped his fingers a few times to get her attention. “We got Dean's message. Where is he?”

She ignored Alec and kept her gaze locked on Sam.

“At first I wasn't very happy about that call your brother made. I was having a lot of fun when it was just me and him catching up on old times. But then I thought where's the harm of bringing the whole party here?”

“Dean!” Sam's booming voice filled the warehouse. “Dean! Where are you!”

Meg tipped her head and raised a mocking hand to her ear to listen for a response. Besides the drip of the rain, Alec could only hear three people in the immediate vicinity and they were all accounted for. Alec kept scanning the room for any other armed human surprises but there didn't seem to be any. His gaze flickered past Meg and into the gloom where the gray light from the windows didn't reach. The scent was difficult to detect amongst the mingled odors of the building, but the metallic smell of fresh blood was hard to miss.

Sam cocked his gun.

“You've got 5 seconds to get Dean out here or--”

“Baby, you keep waving that gun in my face and you won't even get to see a corpse.”

Alec didn't know what this bitch was babbling about but there was no dead body in here. He knew it for a fact and it wasn't because of any freaky powers either. Well, not any like Sam's anyway. Alec could smell blood around but more importantly he could smell Dean. Adrenaline and sweat was as potent to Alec's heightened senses as the fade of split gasoline and the linger of cigarette smoke.

He was distracted by the demon's voice as it wafted through the dark like the musk of her perfume.

“I wish I could say it's nice to see you again, X5-494.”

Alec froze in place, his guns quickly retrained on the pretty target. He understood that normal weapons weren't much use, but he made sure to aim right between her beautiful brown eyes anyway.

“Sorry lady,” Alec said. “I don't think we've ever met.”

“Sure we have,” she scolded him. “Back at Manticore. You might not recognize me because I've gone through a few... changes since then.”

“Why are you here Meg?” Sam demanded. “Haven't seen you around in a long time.”

“A better question is why are you here?” she returned. “When I heard the Winchesters were in town I thought it was just for a cozy family reunion with the baby cyborg over here. But it's because of a whole lot more isn't it?”

“I'm not a fuckin' cybo--”

“Please, Alec,” Sam's voice held a tremor of real fear. “Please be quiet.”

Alec tried biting his tongue to see if the idiom actually worked.

“So then I got to thinking,” she frowned. “Maybe you boys know something about X5-494 that I don't.” A thin blade flicked out from the inside of her sleeve, its edge dark with blood. “Dean wasn't very willing to cough up any family secrets, but I know I'll have better luck with your son.”

Alec took a step backwards out of the scant light and into the shadows. He scanned all the possible exits and searched for any doors that may lead to other sections of the building. But he kept listening to the demon talking. Alec knew all about that game and he recognized a pro when he saw one. Like every good magician, if you kept on talking so no one noticed what you were really up to.

“We came all this way, Meg,” Sam held out his hands. “Just tell me what you want.”

“Not much,” she shrugged. “Almost nothing really.”

“If you are thinking about the colt just forget about it--”

“God, you and that stupid gun,” she snarled in disgust. “No one cares about that thing anymore, Sam! I'm much more interested in that.”

Alec took a moment to realize that the 'that' she was referring to was him. Sam shifted uneasily, his worry plain on his face.

“I know how you like things spelled out for you so I'll talk real slow,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “But first you have to understand where I'm coming from. All we want are some well behaved kids to open our gates and not disintegrate into lunacy just by getting near one.”

“Easier said than done I guess?” Sam muttered.

Meg paused thoughtfully. “All of us at Manticore thought 494 was a dud like all the others. And its not like we didn't give him a try. We even constructed a twin from his genome and let me tell you, what a mess that was....”

Alec felt a sick twist in his gut and avoided Sam's questioning look.

“When 452 forced us to liquidate our stock we didn't even care if 494 was dead or alive,” the demon let out a small laugh. “The boss didn't even bother keeping a DNA sample on file.”

“So why bother now?” Sam quickly said. “Won't your boss get pissed that you're wasting precious time and resources?”

The demon's disgruntled gaze settled on Alec again but the warm honey brown eyes suddenly seemed strange. Too large. Too round and liquid. Alec abruptly realized that he really wasn't looking at a woman at all. The slow blink of her eyes were reptilian and cold. Splayed white fingers twitched against her pallid cheeks. Whatever it was that was staring out from inside that body and utilizing its expressions wasn't a human being.

It wasn't even alive.

Alec realized he had backed himself up into a wall.

“But here we all are,” she said quietly. “And now I can find out if 494 is worth bringing back home.”

The room exploded in a stutter of light as Sam opened fire.

Alec hit the floor and ducked for what little cover there was to be had behind some old packing crates. Knowing Sam had had a clear shot at her, he chanced a look up to see how badly wounded the demon was after three direct hits. But instead of gasping and bleeding, the lady was still standing right where Alec had seen her last. And she was looking at Sam with that same smile blazing brighter than ever.

Meg held up her hand to show Sam the three spent bullets sitting in her palm.

So much for magic guns.

Deciding he was going to take his chances with the semiautomatics, Alec got ready to unload a full magazine into her chest cavity and then another into her skull. Jamming himself up between some exposed pipes for coverage, Alec got ready to start the carnage. But as soon as he had the demon lined up in his sights, something strange started to happen.

It got very cold very fast. So quickly that Alec's bare hands stuck to his suddenly frozen weapons.

“What the--” Alec ripped the frost laced metal from his flesh. “--fuck.”

“Hang in there,” Sam said. “It'll get worse.”

The temperature plummeted further, and then soared again to turn the iced puddles back into slush. Alec groaned when the air pressure in the room dropped rapidly enough to make his ears pop. It was as if a storm was rolling in too fast, sucking the air from Alec's lungs and making the windows shudder in the panes.

Meg's eyes churned into pools of black.

“You wanna try me, Sammy?”

Sam's eyes were closed but his arms were spread wide. His hands were held out and downwards, the water in the puddles at his feet skimming flat like a harsh wind was blowing. And although Alec couldn't feel any breeze, Sam's clothing and hair were being tousled violently as if somehow a tempest was raging right under the creaking warehouse roof.

He slowly opened his eyes again and focused on Meg.

“Ready when you are,” Sam answered.

The sphere of static between them boiled and began to rapidly expand outwards in every direction. Alec scrambled to stay out of the way as Sam and the demon both struggled to hold their ground. Sam groaned as he was steadily pushed backwards on his feet.

“I-I used to toss you around like a chew toy,” she couldn't hide her unease as she started sliding backwards too. “Y-you're getting strong in your old age, Sam.”

Alec knew she didn't mean the man's physicality. It was the shimmer of another power that was distorting light and noise as they strained against each other's limits. The vibration of their clashing energies started to rattle Alec's teeth in his head as every molecule in the air compressed together in deadlock.

“You can't keep this up forever,” the demon's energy briefly flared with her agitation. “You're gonna wear yourself out.”

“Y-You're gonna give me my brother,” Sam told her through clenched teeth. “And then I'm going to end you for good this time--”

“Dean's gone,” she spat. “Dean is rotting meat.”

Alec watched her face and saw the subtle narrow shift in her gaze. She was a pretty good liar but not the best he'd ever seen. But he realized that it didn't matter because what she was saying was messing with Sam's head. Alec was guessing there wasn't a long list of things that could frighten a man like his father.

“He took a long time to die,” her smile was too white and big. “All the crying kind of made me feel bad.”

The fragile bubble of energy protecting Sam wavered.

Alec didn't know what else to do so he just started talking.

“Sam, no, it's not like she's sayin' it is. Dean's not--”

Meg appeared in front of Alec and held up her finger against his lips.

“Shush.”

Alec felt a brutal force shove him backwards. His head smacked into the wall and his breath was knocked completely from his lungs. Trying to shake the stars out of his eyes, he watched her come closer. Sam had done her some damage and that fact made her a little more grumpy than she already had been. Meg straightened her rumpled jacket and attempted to smooth unruly hair away from her flushed face.

“I'm gonna crush your daddy like a beer can,” the strain of keeping Sam in check made her brow glitter with sweat. “Unless you do what you're told.”

Sam fell down onto one knee with a cry of enraged frustration. It was clear to Alec that his father wasn't going to be in this fight for very much longer. Alec wasn't very optimistic in the hope that his dad's sheer will alone could outlast whatever battery the demon was running high on. And unfortunately, whatever power source Meg was tapping seemed to keep on flowing without a hitch. Flexing her fists she started walking into the dark recesses of the warehouse, her boots sloshing through the thin sheet of water that covered the floor.

“Alec!” Sam had crumpled breathlessly to the ground. “Alec... don't--”

Gasping for air, Alec stumbled a few steps before deciding to follow the demon into the murk. The dark was broken when Meg clicked on a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. There wasn't much to see besides a large circle drawn on the concrete. The perfect circumference had a star drawn on its inside and other symbols Alec didn't recognize. Sam was still calling out to him. Calling and calling. He didn't want Alec to go near it. He wanted Alec to run.

But Sam's voice was getting weaker by the second.

Alec refocused on the bottomless black of the demon's eyes.

“All you have to do is step inside,” she told him. “That's not so hard is it?”

Alec remembered his father's warning about the circles, but something told him that these markings held no danger for him. Bits and pieces of information flickered in his head, all the information Missouri had provided him slowly coming together to make sense. The markings were to hinder and damage the supernatural. Hunters like his family used them as weapons all the time.

“I-I can do it,” Alec said with as much confidence as he could fake. “It won't hurt me.”

“It will hurt plenty,” she cracked her knuckles. “I promise.”

“B-But I'm not a demon.”

Alec didn't like how Meg actually appeared at a loss for words for a second.

“Aw, come on now,” she clicked her tongue. “Didn't daddy tell you what you've got running through your veins? He didn't tell you what makes you so extra special?”

“Lady, no one around here ever tells me anything.”

“Don't worry,” her corpse cold hand patted his. “You're just a third rate mongrel with no blood pure enough for a real devil's trap. But I made this one special. This one is made just for kids like you.”

Alec blinked down at the circle drawn carefully on the floor.

“Do it,” her good mood was fading fast. “Do it now.”

Somewhere behind him Sam's plea began to shift into a choking wheeze. Her mood and her mercy were going, going, gone...

Alec stepped into the waiting circle.

He was almost disappointed when nothing happened. Dizzy with relief, he swung around to tell his father that everything was going to be okay. Once Sam saw that this stupid demon and her dumb trap didn't work then they could figure out another way to get out of here. Alec was going to push past Meg and do just that, but a sharp pain made him go still. Clutching his chest, Alec stared down at the soft glow of light that was starting to flow through the lines under his feet.

Meg wet her lips and practically moaned.

“What's-what's happening?” Alec rasped. “What are you doing?”

“Turning you inside out,” her eyes fluttered closed and her body went slack. “You're mine now.”

“I can't...” Alec faltered when his heart stuttered in his chest. “I can't- I can't move.”

He desperately searched for his father and saw the man had collapsed with the revolver laying next to his out stretched hand. Alec staggered as the circle began to slowly spin on the ground, its growing radiance igniting the entire warehouse with its red glare.

“Sam...” Alec felt a wave of nausea and his vision falter as the sickly light enveloped him. “I did something- I did something wrong-- ”

The demon's soft syllables of Latin were slithering and seeping through the air. Her breath turned into an inky curl of smoke, creeping from her lips in a tendril before slowly extending towards Alec. Thrashing blindly, his hands were unable to push the vile cold away from his face as her words slid down his throat and began to slowly choke him.

But it was much more than words rushing in. It was her hatred. It was her desire. Every thought she possessed began to flood into his mind like an ocean trying to force itself into a tea cup.

Alec's body jerked at the sound of a gun discharging at extremely short range.

The red glow from the floor and the whispers pouring into his skull all ceased in one sickening lurch. Falling dazed to his knees, Alec blinked up in confusion at Meg's shocked expression. With her eyes frozen wide, she swayed twice before falling down onto her knees beside him. A line of blood ran from a small hole at the center of her forehead, her skeleton illuminating inside her skin like lightening before her eyes dulled and rolled back.

It was Dean that stood panting above them with the colt smoking in his hand.

Torn leather cords trailed from his bleeding wrists, and one eye was swollen shut. Other than a few other bumps and bruises, his uncle looked pretty good for a supposedly dead guy.

“Holy shit,” Alec's smiled so hard that it hurt his face. “I knew you were here. She kept sayin' you were dead but I knew it all along--”

"“I know, I know..." Dean looked like smiling hurt his face too. "We'll high five later,” he yanked Alec roughly to his feet. “Right now w-we gotta hustle before her friends... her friends .... are gonna...”

The grip supporting Alec weakened, and all of a sudden the man trying to hold Alec up was the one that required help. Alec caught Dean before he slid through the transgenic's sturdy arms and down into the growing pool of Meg's brain fluid. The sight of it spreading over the singed and smoking edges of the circle was a grim reminder that precious seconds were indeed ticking by. His uncle shifted unsteadily against him, making Alec aware of the blood soaking through Dean's flannel shirt.

“Hafta get out of 'ere,” Dean made one last attempt to steady himself on Alec's shoulder but then it was over. “..gotta go now...”

Glancing upwards into the rafters, Alec expected to see a legion of demons swarming down the walls to shred them to pieces. But the warehouse was empty for now. There probably wasn't much time before the demon cavalry would arrive, but hopefully here would be a few minutes for an exit.

Alec let his dulled panic burn white hot when he looked at the comatose figure of his father and then at his uncle sagging limp in his arms.

Good thing Manticore had made him good for heavy lifting.


	9. Number Nine Number Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who loves Manticore Dog Dudes that paint? *raises hand*

There weren't too many sane individuals who chose to live within sight of Terminal City's barbed wire fences.

Alec sprinted up the stairs three at a time to reach the steel reinforced door of the boarded up house. In a big town filled with give-away real estate this shifty part of of the grid was as bad as it got. It was a miserable place to start growing a rose garden but it was ideal for other things. And for some transgenics looking to stay lost these lethal streets were a haven.

“Hey, Josh!” Alec knocked and kicked the door at the same time. “Josh, it's me!”

Despite the bullet holes and gang tags decorating the sagging porch, an old rocking chair had been pulled out there for warmer nights with a radio wired up with an antenna leading to the roof. Alec took the lack of lights in the windows as a good sign.

“I know yer in there!” he yelled. “Drop the paint brushes for one second and open up!”

The artistic recluse that had claimed this dump as a home didn't receive many visitors, but the nice thing about hermits was that they were always home. Alec was ready to start punching the rotting planks into splinters when he finally heard the squeak of rusty hinges.

The door opened a few inches on a chain lock to allow one blue eye to peer from the shadows.

“You loud, Alec,” A low whining growl came from the large man inside. “You wake up whole street--”

Joshua timidly ducked back when a car passed, the sweep of its headlights catching the man's broad face as it sped by. Alec stifled his impatience as Joshua took his time before deciding it was safe to reappear again.

“What's the deal?” Alec shoved at the door. “Lemme in all ready.”

X5-494 had been lucky in a lot of ways when it came down to what had and what hadn't happened in Manticore's experimental laboratories. Of all the animal DNA that had been introduced into Alec's body none of it had ever shown up on his face. Joshua had been put together with plenty of canine and it was hard to miss.

All six feet and seven inches of him.

“Smell funny,” Joshua sniffed at Alec's head suspiciously. “Like blood. Like fire--”

“I called Cindy,” Alec said anxiously. “Did she get my messages? Is she--”

“I'm here, I'm here...”

Alec felt his heart thud in relief when he heard the familiar voice somewhere in the dark. The heavy door shut long enough for all the locks to be removed and then the entire thing was flung wide open. Cindy did not look pleased. In fact, she looked like she'd been pulled off her bike route and forced to pedal across a few crappy sectors and possibly some gangland crossfire. Joshua retreated to the hallway and gave Alec a small wave of belated greeting.

“I got your precious calls. All 56 of them,” Cindy growled. “What was so important that you need my ass all the way out here?”

“Remember when I told Normal you had the Ebola virus but you were really in Aruba?”

“Yeah, but what--”

“I need a return favor.”

Cindy settled her hands on her hips.

“I suppose I'm listenin'.”

Alec glanced over his shoulder at the dingy yellow car he'd parked under the scant cover of trees beside the house. He'd stolen it under an hour ago so its emergency transmitter wouldn't be hitting the police bands for another few minutes.

“I need you to ditch a registered taxi for starters,” he explained. “Then I'll be needing your sector pass. It's still good for duel entry up through Canada right? Mine is only good for two so I'll need one more or someone is gonna have to get stuffed in the trunk under some blankets.”

Cindy stared at him for a second before full outrage could register on her face. “Ditch a car? And what's wrong with your very own sector pass?” she looked him up and down. “And what exactly happened to you? You look like hell warmed over.”

“Thanks,” he pushed past her and headed for the bathroom. “Your metaphor is ironically appropriate.”

Cindy watched him collect Joshua' s meager towel collection from off the shelves.

“Alec, y-you're gonna have to slow down and tell me what's goin' on.”

“Someone out there,” Joshua was at one of the front windows peaking through a crack between the nailed up plywood. “Two ones in the taxi car.”

“Yeah,” Alec ripped a few towels in pieces and tossed them on the sofa. “I'm gonna need your help bringing 'em inside, Josh. One of those two is gonna be tough getting up the stairs.”

“Alec...” Cindy warned.

“And do you have any first aid kits around here, buddy? Maybe some antiseptic or some isopropyl--”

“Alec!” Cindy snaked a hand inside his jacket. “Hold up!”

“oW-!”

Alec was forced to come to a complete stop or bodily shove her out of the way. From the look on her face he deduced the latter would be a grave mistake. He had to admit however, the sharp pinch she gave to his nipple area really helped in momentarily clearing his head.

Cindy was glaring at him but pointing out the window.

“Who the hell are the people in the jacked taxi?”

“Uh,” Alec rubbed at the back of his head. “It's kind of a long story.”

“Do I look like I got any place to go?”

He stared at her mud splattered biking gear and the disarray of her hair. For one second it seemed possible that everything could be like it had been before the Winchesters had shown up at his door. Everyday was bitching about work, lunch at the noodle stand and happy dumb hopes to meet at Crash later. All his worries were big and large at night when he lay down to sleep but his days were as normal as normal could be.

Not anymore.

“I-It started with some red crap coming out of my drains and then they showed up looking for my dead cat and ... oh man... It's Manticore but-but, Manticore isn't what I thought it all was. ”

Cindy was just confused and irritated before, but now he'd said all the right words to scare the shit out of her. Alec backed away from her startled shock. He understood the human reaction was to touch and console but he didn't want kindness right now. Everywhere he'd gone the last few days he'd left a trail of dead bodies in his wake and he didn't plan on staying around here long enough to see it happen again.

“I think I messed up really bad, but I'm not sure if just being alive is messing everything up already. I don't know how to make it better because I don't understand what's going on but these guys, the ones out in the car--”

“Easy now, honey. Just slow it all down.”

Alec forced himself to take a deep breath. Joshua moved in close behind him, pressing against his back in a strangely feline gesture. Alec leaned into the musky scent of shaggy fur and the sharp scent of paint thinner.

“Whatever it is you think you did? It can be worked out.” Cindy lay a cool hand against his cheek. “There's nothing out here in the world that can't be fixed.”

“Y-You don't understand,” Alec stammered. “There are some things that shouldn't be real but now I've seen them and I think they're looking for me. I'm not even sure what they want, I knew what Manticore wanted and that all made sense but this doesn't make any sense at all...”

Alec could tell by the look on Cindy's face that he must have looked and sounded like a crazy person. He couldn't blame her because he sure felt like all of the above.

“Have you slept lately?” she asked. “Cuz you don't look too good--”

“I'm sorry, Cindy,” Alec humiliated himself further by pressing harder into her hand. “I-I'm so sorry.”

“Why you sorry, sugar?”

“I'm sorry for laughing at you... you know, giving you shit every time you said you believed in... in all that stuff about heaven,” he crushed his face into the dense mass of her curls. “I thought you'd just seen too much bad stuff happen. I thought you were just pretending 'cause it'd hurt less.”

“It's hope,” she murmured softly. “It's all it is.”

“But you were right,” Squeezing his burning eyes shut, he let her arms fold around his shaking shoulders. “You were right about everything.”

Especially about the hope part.

Because if the devil existed, that meant a few angels might too.

 

 

 

 

Alec felt some familial pride when Dean was faced with the bizarre sight of Joshua.

His uncle took a few moments to soak it in and then simply shook the transgenic's massive paw.

There were no questions or any cheap jokes. Just a sincere thanks for the sterile gauze, hot water and chemical ice packs. Cindy didn't hesitate to shake Dean's hand, but if Dean could read the mistrust in her eyes he was too tired to care. Joshua quickly got busy getting together the scatter of used tea bags, cans of stew and a few beers that had been gathering dust in the corners of his kitchen. Alec didn't realize how hungry he was until he started to smell food cooking. But satisfying hunger and thirst had to wait for a while.

Cindy shifted uncertainly at his side.

“So what's wrong wit 'im?”

There was only one bedroom with a bed in it and the bare mattress looked like it had been there since the Pulse hit. It was where they'd laid Sam down and it was where Dean had followed as soon as he'd patched himself up. Cindy stood with Alec down the hall where they could see inside without taking up the doorway.

Alec chewed his thumbnail and tried to think of an answer that would make Cindy stop asking.

“He got in a fight,” Alec repeated. “A bad one.”

Sam hadn't woken up once since they'd left the warehouse. Not on the bumpy trip in the pilfered taxi or even when Joshua had indelicately carried him into the house. His pulse was steady and his temperature was normal but he wouldn't open his eyes.

“You should call Logan,” she said for the hundredth time. “He can call that doctor lady. And what about Max? Max might know something that can help.”

“Max doesn't know anything about this.”

Cindy winced at the sharp edge in Alec's voice and he immediately felt sorry for it.

“Cindy, there was this lady, she- she...” Alec felt his eyes blurring again and he wiped at them angrily with his sleeve. “There was this lady from Manticore and she told me some bad things. Things that are worse than the stuff I already know if you can believe that crap.”

“I get that you're in trouble and it's because of these men, right?” Cindy's calm was starting to fray. “This is gonna get too big, Alec. I think we should give Max a call, she'll be able to--”

“No, no we can't!” Alec looked worriedly towards the windows that Joshua always kept carefully shrouded day or night. “They found me and they could find her too... its best to leave her out of it. Fuck, for all I know Max might be one of them.”

“O-One of what?”

Alec scrubbed his hands over his face and walked away. Cindy tried only once to call him back but he couldn't tell her anymore right now. If all went as he planned he'd be gone before she had a chance to hear all his newest dirty secrets anyway.

He moved into the warm quiet of the bedroom and found the old fireplace had a few logs crackling behind the grate. The light skipped and danced over the piles of unfinished canvases Joshua left stacked against the walls. Wedged between the bed and the window, Dean had fallen to sleep in the rocker that had previously been on the porch. His uncle had also found a fresh shirt to wear and a paint splotched blanket to wrap up in.

Alec sagged down in the only other chair in the room and stared at the dark bruises that covered one side of Dean's face. The man hadn't complained once when he had been cleaning himself up. The guy even insisted on sewing up the gashes on his arms all by himself. The only real concern Dean had shown for anything had been for his brother.

The transgenic's gaze flickered to the man on the bed. His father looked like he was sleeping, hands resting at his sides and lips parted in a restful slumber.

Sam didn't have a scratch on him.

Alec shifted around in the stiff wooden chair until he couldn't stand it anymore. Slowly reaching into Dean's jacket, he watched the man's face as he searched for a phone. His uncle didn't stir when he pulled it out and flicked it open. The dented device was a little worse for wear but it was still working. Flipping through the menu, Alec found more monikers and truncated code than he knew what to do with. However, a few words stuck out from the rest. He sat forward as he realized they were names that had appeared time and time again in haze of his dreams.

Bobby Singer. Ellen Harvelle. James Murphy. Gordon Walker. There was even a Joshua.

Alec gnawed on his lip and wondered which one he should dial. Surely one of these strangers held some knowledge on how to heal a hunter that had gone three rounds with a demon. Maybe these people knew other hunters, or even were hunters themselves--

The abrupt sound of Dean's sleepy voice almost made Alec wet his pants.

“You know how old Sammy was when you were born?”

Dean held out his hand and waited for Alec to pass back the phone.

“He was 16 years old,” Dean answered. “And ½.”

“What about my mother?” Alec hadn't really thought much about his parents ages before. “How old was she?”

“Jessica was 15.”

“Kids these days, huh?”

“Man, oh man,” Dean painfully stretched in the confines of the rocking chair. “First thing he did after he found out she was pregnant was call me. He was so scared he had to put the phone down to puke his guts out.”

“Sounds magical.” Alec felt weird about asking the questions but he didn't feel weird enough to stop. “So I guess that means they never got married?”

“There were plans for that after they finished school,” Dean sighed and tipped back his chair. “There seemed like so much time to worry about all that crap after, you know?”

Alec had no idea actually.

“Was she nice?”

Dean studied him a moment before answering. “I should have all sorts of heart warming tales to impart but honestly dude, I really have no idea what she was like,” he rubbed at his eyes and tugged the blanket closer. “I only met her a few times and I wasn't exactly her favorite person in the whole world.”

The response wasn't what Alec was expecting but it made him feel better in a way. It made him feel less left out of an entire family that had known each other all their lives.

They both jumped when Sam made a sudden harsh sound. Alec watched hopefully as his father rolled on the mattress and flung a hand out from under the quilted covers.

“He'll wake up in a while,” Dean said. “Don't worry.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he always does.”

“Get in a ton of demon fights do ya?”

“Just a few times a year,” Dean winked with his good eye.

Alec was silent for a minute as he listened to the snap and hiss of the burning pine. He cleared his throat and got ready to say what had been on his mind ever since he had gotten behind the wheel of the stolen taxi.

“I checked my messages and that car is waiting for us down by the docks,” he mumbled. “A-And I can get another sector pass. I can make it so we can all get out of here like you wanted.”

Dean glanced back behind Alec and down the hallway where the low murmur of Cindy and Joshua's voices could be heard in the kitchen.

“It'll be a long trip,” his uncle said quietly. “We probably won't be coming back this way for a while.”

“I need a vacation anyway,” Alec shrugged. “I could use some time off bumming around like you do.”

Dean groaned as he got to an unsteady stand. After dropping his blanket on Alec, he dragged the rocking chair closer to the fire. The orange light flickered bright against the walls, the pleasant heat and a body warm blanket making Alec even more sleepy than he already was.

“We snooze in shifts until Sam's up and ready to go,” Dean tossed another piece of wood onto the small blaze. “When he's awake he'll be a little uh... different for a while. It takes him a few hours to get back to speed. He might forget stuff like names and places, but don't let it scare you because it goes away. You understand?”

Alec nodded.

“You did real good tonight, Alec.”

Crossing his arms across his chest, the transgenic shut his eyes and thought of a thousand more questions he was too wrung out to ask. Instead, he decided to respond like a normal person would after some honest to god locker-room praise.

“Thank you,” Alec tried to get more comfortable in his chair. “Don't mention it. Ever.”

“We'll leave in the morning,” Dean said. “First thing.”

Alec was in full agreement on moving out by the dawn's early light but first he was going to try out some of that sleep everyone kept talking about. If he could shut his head off long enough to do it.

Something brushed softly against Alec's ear.

Sitting up in alarm, he found the room exactly like he'd left it before he'd shut his eyes. He blinked drowsily over at the still form of his father. He could have sworn he'd heard the whisper of Sam's voice, but the man hadn't moved. As Alec drifted in an out of sleep, he watched the slow rise and fall of Sam's chest as he breathed. He knew they were still linked in some way, the gradual recovery of the man somehow gently hurried along by Alec being nearby.

Half gone, Alec dragged his blanket with him and slid in next to the warm body on the bed. It was a tight fit but it was a hell of a lot more comfortable than the chair. As Alec settled into the musty mattress a pang of worry flared cold in his belly. Real sleep would bring the nightmares. The dreams would wait for him to close his eyes long enough so they could take hold. Pulling the blanket over his head, Alec's grit his teeth in frustration as the promise of rest also meant the pain played over and over again in a loop he couldn't stop no matter what he--

He stilled when Sam's arm came down to rest comfortably over his shoulder.

All the stuttering images behind Alec's eyes went to black. The scent of the burning forest receded. The man with the yellow eyes faded away.

Falling asleep instantly, Alec sank blissfully down into the first real rest he'd had in days.

Silent and warm.

Dreamless and quiet.

 

 

tbc


	10. This Guy is Famous

Alec had never told anyone but he didn't like the ocean that much.

It was difficult to predict, problematic to transverse, and it tasted like shit. People always seemed to be writing poems and epic odes to the beauty of the sea but to a transgenic's enhanced senses it wasn't all that pleasant. The cluttered shore was just a place for billion different forms of life to be born and die and Alec could smell the stink of every one of them.

“Beautiful day,” Dean smiled at the gray waves. “Makes ya feel alive don't it?”

Alec avoided looking at the day old bruises on his uncle's face. The ugly colors matched the patch work of storm clouds drifting in low over the water. To anyone watching from the road they looked like just some beachcombers enjoying the frosty morning air. Fairly stupid beachcombers considering most of the shoreline was littered with land mines left over from the last cold war. But the police drones that patrolled the area only came by every thirty minutes. That gave plenty of time to take an unauthorized shortcut across the sand.

Alec glanced uneasily over his shoulder.

“Should we wait for him?” he asked. “He's just standing there.”

“Leave Sam be,” Dean said. “He's comin'.”

Alec had been trained to operate efficiently over most kinds of terrain, but he was having trouble with the smooth round stones that covered the beach. Every time he turned around to see if his father was following along behind them, he wrenched an ankle between the rocks.

Dean caught him by the elbow before he fell flat out on his face.

“What did I tell you?”

“I know,” Alec mumbled. “It's just, I dunno, it's, it's...”

“It's weird.” Dean finished for him. “Last time Sam went nuclear he didn't even know who I was for about a week. Lemme tell ya, it made long car trips real awkward.”

Alec stared at the rocks under his boots. “Can anyone do the stuff he did?” he ventured. “Anyone with... the blood?”

“You mean can you do it?” Dean looked at him sideways.

“You came looking for me for a reason. That Meg-thing said it too.”

Alec sensed a sudden change in his uncle's mood, the median of Dean's scent shifting abruptly into the roil of anger.

“You think we wanna use you like they do?”

“N-No, wait, I didn't mean--”

“We spent ten years looking for your top secret ass. Trust me, we didn't care what we found. We just wanted to find you and that's what we did.”

Alec shoved his hands in his pockets and tried biting his tongue again.

“Have you maybe wondered why it took us so long?” Dean muttered. ”We have our slow days, but come on, ten years is stretch even for us.”

Alec looked at his uncle uncertainly.

“Those bastards came real close to getting a gate open in '09,” he explained. “Like I told you it didn't work out too great for either side. The thing collapsed and screwed everything up. The weather. The tides. Even all the technology. But they came so close they could taste it. Everyone on the planet with power could.”

“Even Sam?”

“That's when he figured out you were still alive,” Dean said. “So we dug up some documents to prove it and we were on our way.”

“Ten years ago.”

“Yup.”

“So... what changed?”

They both paused when Sam began to lag too far behind them.

“You just turned 21 right?” Dean dug the toe of his boot into the packed sand. “Sam's... dreams... didn't start showin' up until he was near your age. Then the dreams turned into weird visions and now its gotten to be what you saw last night.”

“My dreams started 15 days ago.”

“It was like Sam could hear you callin'," Dean shook his head. ”Ten years of nothing and then two weeks back he wakes me up in the middle of the night and says we gotta head to Seattle.”

Alec watched his father make his way down the beach towards them. “Why would some all powerful demon wait around so long for its children to grow and... hatch?”

Dean snorted a laugh.

“That little detail kept me up thinkin' for a lot of nights. But it figures that the simplest explanation always turns out to be the right one.”

And just like that Alec understood.

“They don't want to wait. They just don't have any choice.”

“Bingo,” Dean nodded. “Whenever another decade rolls around another gate gets ready to open. And all the kids like you start activating like someone tossed an on-switch.”

Alec had to stop and steady himself on the slick rocks as cold hard realization sunk in. “That means there's a gate here,” he looked around the windy shore. “There's one in the city.”

“Yer close but not quite,” Dean yanked up the collar of his jacket and got back to walking. “There isn't a gate in the city.”

Alec's chilled skin went ice cold.

“The damn gate is the city,” Dean told him. “And you can't be anywhere near here when they get ready to blow the thing wide open.”

 

 

 

 

Most of the fields of cracked concrete down by the water were empty. Some were left over foundations from the steel warehouses that were dismantled for scrap. A few had been pulled up with bulldozers and were overgrown gardens of thorned weeds. But most of it was left to become junk yard museums of the rusted ships that had once chugged through the busy city ports.

Besides a few stray dogs no one had much reason to hang out in an abandoned dry dock.

Unless some business needed to be done off the city camera network.

“How you feelin', Sammy?”

Alec waited anxiously for Sam to answer Dean's question. His father's eyes had lost the vacancy that had been there all morning but there was still something wrong. The detached wander of the normally sure gaze made Alec feel uncomfortable and nervous for no good reason.

“Tired,” Sam said it like it was a chore to speak. “Real tired.”

“We're gonna get a car soon,” Dean assured him. “You can sleep all the way to the border.”

Sam nodded absently.

“Hey Alec,” Dean turned away from the wind that started to blow in a little colder off the water. “About this Eyes Only guy? I know Sam said he's all clear and what I could find on the dude checks out but--”

“Logan is totally on the level,” Alec was getting tired of repeating it but he could sympathize with a good strong case of paranoia. “If he said he'll be here then he'll be here.”

“Does your boyfriend wear a trench coat, designer shades and frown a lot?”

“Stop calling him my boyfriend,” Alec checked and rechecked the gun Dean had given him. “And yeah, you pretty much nailed him.”

“He's early.”

Alec swung around to see what Dean was looking at. For an Ordinary his uncle seemed to notice more than a transgenic did half the time. Dressed in a long black coat, Eyes Only was standing at the edge of the pier a full hour before scheduled. And more importantly there was a nondescript pickup truck with a few barrels of gas in the back parked right next to him.

“I'll go first,” Alec said quickly. “He doesn't know you and he might get freaked.”

Pulling Sam in tow, Dean reluctantly moved back between the rotting boats. Making sure they were out of sight, Alec started walking fast. There was a weightlessness to his step as a feeling of relief swept through him. He wished he had a longer span of time to tell Logan some of the things he'd learned but he knew their meeting would have to be short and sweet. Alec had all the cash he owned sitting in one pocket and all the gratitude he possessed in the smile on his face. He hoped the money and his thanks would be enough to cover the expenses until he worked out something up north.

When Alec got within a few yards of Logan he stopped dead in his tracks. The man's posture was restless and guarded.

Something was wrong.

“L-Logan?”

“I had to do it, Alec.”

“What?” Alec stepped forwards. “What's going on?”

“They took her,” When Logan took off the sunglasses his eyes were bloodshot. “They told me if I didn't get you to meet me here they would kill her.”

He was holding some photographs in his gloved hands. The glossy paper was crushed in his grip but the woman in every picture was crystal clear. Max's dark hair was matted with blood, her bruised eyes wide open and staring vehemently into the lens. Alec dully realized the slight sway to Logan's stance and glazed eyes meant he had been doing some hard drinking.

“They-they sent me these last night,” Logan let the photos flutter to the ground. “I didn't know what else to do.”

Alec cursed under his breath and quickly scanned their immediate area for unwanted company.

“It's okay, Logan” he grabbed the man's arm and started pulling him away. “I've got friends here that can help. We just got to regroup and discuss this all somewhere that's not here.”

“Alec, stop.” Logan wouldn't budge. “There are men stationed on all the access roads just waiting for this truck to show. He's not gonna let us go anywhere.”

“Who-who isn't?” Alec searched all the narrow paths through the maze of boats. “You just got to move fast, all right? We'll get out of here--”

“Does this mean we have to hitch to Canada?”

Alec cringed at the sound of Dean's voice.

He didn't want to turn around and look but he knew he had too. As Alec suspected it was exactly what he didn't want to see right at the moment. Dean was there with a cocked gun and an extremely unhappy look on his face. Alec hadn't been with his family long but he had a distinct impression they didn't appreciate being fucked around with.

“Let me share my first of many life lessons with you, Alec,” Dean leveled the weapon at Logan. “Never trust anyone you meet on the internet.”

“It's not his fault,” Alec shoved Logan behind him and backed up. “Those black eyed freaks got Max!”

“Just step away from the rat.”

“No.” Alec decided on a course of action. “No way.”

Dean looked nothing but confused when the gun was suddenly wrenched out of his hand. Alec knew you could read every text book on the shelf about X5s but seeing one blur into motion always put that look on people's faces. Even the stoic scientists that had sketched the blueprints themselves never knew what to think when their pets performed as designed.

“I wasn't gonna kill 'im,” Dean didn't bother trying to struggle out of Alec's headlock. “I was just gonna maim him a little.”

Alec squeezed a little harder.

“Okay! Okay!” Dean surrendered. “I get it! Lay off already!”

Logan stumbled up against the side of the pick up and peered at them in bewilderment. “Dean?” he hesitantly asked. “Dean Winchester?”

“What the--” Alec released the hold on his uncle and let him stand up. “You know this guy?”

Dean righted himself and ruefully rubbed at his wrist. He looked Logan up and down a few times before recognition brightened his face.

“Holy shit, Logan... Cale?” Dean laughed in disbelief. “Sam! Hold yer fire and come out here! You're not gonna believe this!”

Sam stepped carefully out from behind a clump of rotting fishing nets with a lowered gun. Logan backed up a few steps but held his ground.

“Alec didn't tell us Eyes Only was Logan Cale,” Dean smiled at the startled man. “I guess we shoulda figured what with your set up and everything. By the way, nice website you got goin' on there. I took your poll about corrupt government and left a comment--”

“Wait!” Alec breathed. “You know him too?”

“Sure!” Dean gave Logan a firm pat on the shoulder that almost sent him into the dirt. “Haven't seen him in a few years but this guy? This guy is famous.”

“A famous what?”

“A famous hunter,” Dean said. “What else?”

Alec blinked at Logan who was still staring in confusion at the Winchesters.

“How did you-when did you get-” Logan stammered. “How do you know Alec?”

“We'll talk later,” Sam interrupted them.

“What is it?” Dean quickly picked up his dropped gun. “Talk to me.”

“We don't have much time.”

Alec anxiously recalled Logan mentioning that someone unfriendly was waiting in the wings and never gotten around to saying just who it might be. But his father apparently knew precisely who had set them all up and it was the last name Alec ever wanted to hear.

“Ames White is coming.”

 

 

tbc


	11. Hot Wiring for Dummies

Alec knew how to make a quick exit, but with three slow Ordinaries to worry about it made the task of saving his own ass slightly more complicated.

“How long do ya think it will take them to figure out we're not coming?” Dean looked around the scrap yard. “I like to panic on a schedule.”

“They'll be here in about fifteen,” Sam answered.

“Minutes or seconds?”

“Minutes.”

“There's time to start a crossword,” Dean's smile didn't last long as he stopped to consider his brother. “And how exactly would you know that by the way?”

Alec wanted to say something in his father's defense when Sam uncomfortably shifted under the questioning stare. He got ready to suggest they redirect their energy to running for their lives when fate stepped in and unfortunately smiled.

Logan staggered over to a pile of tires and started puking his guts out.

“Whoa,” Dean stepped away to keep his boots safe. “What's that about?”

“It's nothin'. He's fine.” Alec almost gagged himself when the smell of used whiskey mixed with the tang of briny sea air. “He's just uh really stressed out and tired and...” he winced when another tragic bout of heaving started. “Okay, he's kinda wasted but he'll be okay in a sec. Truth be told he does this all the time--”

Dean snapped his fingers and pointed triumphantly at Logan. “Ya know, that gives me an idea. Alec, grab the extremely heavy gas tanks outta the truck would ya?”

Alec was a little confused as to how they were supposed to make a quick get away with two giant containers of highly combustible fluid. Busy rolling the barrels off the bed of the truck, he didn't know where they were headed until everyone started climbing over the pier railing. The ancient tug boat listing in the water wasn't an alternative Alec would have considered on his own. In fact, if he had been included in the vote he would have definitely given the plan a double-hands-raised nay.

“Are you kiddin' me?” Alec hefted a bulky barrel over onto the rocking deck. “Maybe I should stay here and take my chances with White...”

“Careful with that stuff,” Dean helped Sam cast the huge mooring ropes off the sides. “We aren't going to see a gas station for a while.”

Alec jumped on board and took a look around at their new mode of transport. The floating piece of scrap with the flaking steel hull didn't seem very land worthy let alone sea worthy. Logan slumped to a seat under the rusted handrail and somehow turned a shade greener.

“It looks good,” Sam flipped down the engine room hatch. “It's got all its parts, I have no idea if they work but they're all there.”

“Sounds great to me,” Dean pushed Alec towards the boat's tiny bridge. “Age before beauty, pal.”

Alec allowed himself to be stuffed into the small compartment as his uncle squeezed in behind. Its musty interior didn't inspire confidence in the craft's ability to do much more than sink. If the engine below looked anything like the decay of the controls and foggy glass dials then they were in a lot of trouble. Alec tapped the dead weather radar monitor and gave the corroded board of circuit breakers a dubious look. These old tugs didn't require a key but they needed a decent jump start off a battery. His uncle was already pushing all the popped breakers back in place and prying off a loose panel. Dean wedged a pocket knife into the wires to close the circuit and the entire thing suddenly sparked and sizzled to life.

The alternator gauge twitched and the needle jumped up past the red and into the green.

“Beautiful,” Dean got up and dusted himself off. “Let's fire her up!”

When his uncle paused over the controls Alec abruptly realized that Dean wasn't exactly sure on how to proceed. And that meant there was no one present authorized or trained to operate a boat. Unless Alec counted himself.

“I got it,” Alec shouldered his uncle out of his way. “Just sit back and relax.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean studied Alec's face for a moment. “You sayin' you know how to fly one of these things?”

“Maybe,” he worked his hands over the unfamiliar levers and shifts. “I know one-hundred-and-thirty-one checklists and procedures for most boats this size and this one looks pretty standard so--”

“Sure, but have you ever actually been in one of these crates before?”

“Nope,” Alec took another look at the gray expanse of water before them. “I've been in a pool a few times?”

“Give it your best shot, kid.” Dean shrugged. “We're kinda in one of those 'nothing much to lose' scenarios anyway.”

Alec wondered which hand was luckier to cross your fingers on.

“Here it goes!”

Everyone on deck flew backwards as the engine thundered to life and rattled the old tug like a blender filled with bricks. Dean was tossed conveniently into the captain's chair as the entire aft section of the boat dipped down and sent the bow straight into the air. The cramped bridge was small enough for Dean to lunge forward and quickly yank the controls back. Lurching back and forth in the water, the hectic whine of the prop promptly sputtered and died.

Alec waited a second for his heart to start beating again.

“Okay, step away!” Dean shoved Alec. “I didn't know you were gonna go and flood the damn thing!”

“I did not!” Alec pushed him back. “This thing is an old piece of--shit!”

Alec took himself and Dean downwards when a bullet exploded into the glass porthole beside them. Several more shots thudded into the walls, ringing and dinging against the metal hull. Alec had thought 15 minutes was a generous estimate for how long it would take White's men to figure out they hadn't taken the bait. But his father had timed it right down to almost the second.

Alec chanced a look and saw Sam toss Logan an extra gun as they both took cover and returned fire.

“This thing isn't a piece of shit,” Dean muttered as he got to his feet. “It's a victim of neglect.”

Catching the sound of tires hissing on gravel, Alec spotted another SUV pulling up beside the others. His eyes widened when he saw the armored guards pour out with semi-automatic machine guns under their arms.

“Uh, I have a different plan,” he swallowed nervously and tugged at Dean's arm. “I hope you've been practicing your backstroke--”

“Just hold your horses.”

Alec flattened himself against the floor as the machine guns started spraying bullets across the bow.

“This innocent diesel has just been sittin' cold for God knows how long,” Dean murmured as he adjusted the throttles and tweaked the fuel mixture. “You just.. gotta... treat her... right...”

“Dean!” Sam had dodged behind the wheelhouse for cover. “We're out of time,” he warned. “I mean it--”

“Yeah, yeah, here comes the miracle.”

Dean flicked the shift and slowly eased both engines wide open.

After a stutter and roar, the churning prop sent a wave of white water crashing against the dock of armed men. With another push on the controls they were leaving the machine guns behind and heading fast into the safety of the open harbor.

“I don't know where we're going but it ain't gonna be far,” Dean swung the wheel to point the boat north. “This baby is quick but the tanks are running on fumes.”

“Over there!” Sam shouted over the wind whipping through the broken windows. “Do you see it?”

Dean squinted into the horizon and picked up what Sam was pointing at before Alec did. Like many of the half sunken vessels in the harbor, the dark shapes of the wrecks had become an unnoticed part of the landscape. The tanker had run aground years ago but no efforts had been made to remove it from where it had lodged itself into the sand. Tipped slightly on its side, the water came up past one half of the rotting hull. The other side formed a natural cove from the weather coming in from the ocean. Alec spotted a few other smaller wrecks near by. If they got close and anchored they might be able to fake it as a salvage boat.

He grinned as he calculated the 2.7 nautical miles it would take to get them there.

Alec heard Logan on the metal stairs behind him.

“We did it, Logan! See I told you it would be okay--”

Sliding into the cabin, the man collapsed into Alec while clutching an arm closely to his side. Alec quickly diagnosed the bullet graze on the upper bicep as superficial, but that didn't mean bleeding to death wasn't on the list of concerns. Ripping the fleece cover off the captain's chair, Alec eased Logan down to apply pressure on the wound. Pressing on the wad of cloth over his hand, Logan nodded up at the storm clouds that were making the day as dark as night.

“Before White gets any choppers in the air,” he was pale but his eyes were focused. “We should shut off all the lights.”

The bright flood light over the deck went dark as Dean yanked a row of circuit breakers.

“W-White might contact the marine patrol,” Logan stifled a groan when Alec peeled back his jacket. “Or any of the military divisions in the area--”

“He won't,” Sam crouched down to check Logan for any other injuries. “He's gonna wait.”

“If I were him I'd sink this bath toy with a torpedo,” Dean shook his head. “Three times.”

“Ames White won't touch us until he knows its safe to make a move.”

“You sound awfully sure about that, Sammy.”

Alec didn't mean to flinch when his father touched his face. With all the bullets flying it hadn't occurred to him to worry about the glass. The cut under his eye wasn't too bad. Nothing a good band aid and a few stitches wouldn't fix right up.

“I'm absolutely sure,” Sam wiped the blood across the thigh of his jeans. “Because they want Alec alive.”

 

 

 

 

 

To their collective relief the anchor lowered without a hitch. It dropped less than a hundred feet of chain before hitting bottom and tethering them in the shadow of the wrecked tanker.

All that was left to do was shiver and wait.

Below deck was a dank galley that had been cleaned out by scavengers long ago. But it was out of the wind and a hell of lot warmer than standing out in the drizzling rain. Despite the lulling rock of the waves Alec couldn't fall asleep like everyone else did. To be fair Logan had faded quick after Sam convinced him to take a pain killer they'd found in the meager stock of the first aid kit. Dean had cleaned out a padded stall in the corner, pulled a pile of moldy life vests over his head for warmth and was out like a light.

Alec shut the galley hatch behind him and glanced up at the peeling painted letters of the oil tanker's namesake looming overhead. The bold Russian letters read: Salvation

His laugh lost on the wind, Alec zipped up his coat and took a seat on a dented gas barrel.

Hanging around outside wasn't exactly pleasant, but the view was a lot better. The city sparkled through the hanging clouds as the tug dipped and rose on the slow passage of waves. It wasn't a huge surprise when he heard his father's heavy tread on the metal grate behind him.

“So are you gonna tell anyone how you did all that?” Alec asked.

“Did what?”

“You're predicting their every move,” Alec whipped the wet hair out of his face to look his father in the eye. “It's like you're listening in on their communications. Like a wiretap, or bio-implants or--”

“I guess I am in a way,” Sam shrugged. “If you listen hard enough you could hear it too.”

“What?” Alec pulled his collar up. “I-I can't do that stuff.”

“Try.”

“But I--”

“Stop thinking so hard and just trust me.”

Alec shut his mouth and clenched his jaw in frustration.

Sam wanted him to give a try with the crazy psychic super powers he didn't have? Sure. Why the hell not? Part of the glory of owning real parents seemed to always include an attempt to appease their unreasonable expectations anyway. Alec stared hard at the shoreline where they'd managed to leave Ames White behind. He had no idea what he was even trying to do. Listen. Listen to what? The magic in the misty air? The enchantment of the rain turning into sleet? Maybe his father meant that damn cow bell on the mast that wouldn't stop banging against the wheelhouse--

“Here,” his father said. “I'll give you a lift.”

Alec felt a weird tremor go through his body when Sam's hand closed over his.

At first he thought the roar of the wind had suddenly grown inexplicably stronger. Alec looked at the deck under his feet in confusion. The engine had been shut down so the hiss and thrum of the pistons couldn't be responsible for what was warping into what sounded like... language. It was all an incoherent scramble of static. Covering his ears, he gradually realized it wasn't anything he could block out even if he wanted to.

“I-I can hear them,” Alec gasped. “Talking. I hear people talking.”

“Good, Alec,” Sam's hand squeezed tighter. “What else do you hear?”

“They're gonna wait,” Alec tore his gaze off the shore and blinked at his father. “They want us to think we've gotten clear so they can catch us with our guard down.”

“We're all connected,” Sam said. “You, me, all the demons and every human being that has been given their blood. The closer we are the stronger it gets.”

Alec's eyes widened when he heard the surge of whispering voices begin to shift. With his heart hammering in his chest he understood the new thoughts were coming from Logan and Dean. Their doubt and fear was as tangible in their slumber as a shout out loud. Alec whimpered when it started getting too fast and too much. His father was right about the extra bandwidth going around. He had a flash of panic as he remembered Meg's thoughts flooding his head. All the noise and chaos straining into his skull until he thought it was going to explode--

Everything went silent.

He watched in disbelief as Sam slipped his hand back into a jacket pocket.

“It's time you told me, Alec.”

“Told you what?”

“What Missouri showed you,” his father said quietly. “I know you don't want to but it's important.”

Alec felt a surge of pain as his mind was abruptly overloaded with too many images at once. Just brushing against the memories stashed away in his brain made him want to throw up.

“She showed me lots of things... you, Dean, your lives, some black car...” he stuttered. “I saw Kansas, I saw California, I saw... I saw everywhere.”

“Look here, in the city,” Sam leaned down to look him directly in the eyes. “Look for the center of the gate.”

“D-Dean said the whole town is the gate.”

“That's right but every gate has a lock. You've been living on top of this thing for a while and you're as connected to it as you are to me. You have to concentrate. You have to tell me where it is so I can stop them.”

“But I don't know where the center is,” Alec started to shake. “I don't know anything!”

“My brother wants to take you away from here,” he steadied him by the shoulders. “He's scared to lose you again and so am I. But this gate is gonna open with or without you, and we have to stop it or everyone in this city is going to suffer.”

Alec thought of the photographs Logan had been sent. If all the bad guys needed was an X5 then they had a pretty good specimen to do their work for them.

“You mean Max,” Alec mumbled. "They're gonna use her to do it?"

Sam's silence answered that question.

Alec's gaze flickered back to the shoreline. The clouds shifted just enough for the dull glitter of the skyline to reappear.

Standing out like a beacon was the place he'd seen in his dreams. Over and over again until it had been burned onto the back of his retinas, but he'd had no idea why until this very moment. Everything he'd seen suddenly made perfect sense. If the crowded city was a gate in disguise then it kept its lock in plain sight for all its citizens to see too.

“It's right there,” Alec pointed. “That's it.”

Sam turned and looked.

Standing at around 600 feet the Space Needle was one of the tallest structures in town.

His father smiled a little.

“Guess we get to play tourist tonight.”

 

tbc


	12. A Water View

It turned out the old boat had proved useful for more than just saving their lives.

Alec was aware that everything on the planet had resale value but he was surprised how much a rotting tugboat went for these days. It turned out the scrap could be sold for a couple bucks and the precious barrels of gas they'd poured into its leaky tanks were worth a few dollars more. Dean had taken a walk down the pier to carry on negotiations with the elderly captain of an even more ancient fishing troller. The buyer was willing to make a deal but he didn't like an audience.

“Dean can speak Chinese?” Alec asked dubiously.

“Not even a take out menu,” Sam answered. “But he's fluent in decimal points.”

Pacing alongside a pile of lobster traps, his father watched the distant exchange as if he could hear every word. Alec decided to use his time by trying not to think about food. Or water. But mostly not about any food, like a gigantic meatball sandwich or a big bowl of noodles with salty beef broth and--

Logan snapped his cell phone shut. “I got some bad news and some good news. I got a few minutes of access to my computer and saw the city security grid.”

“Here we go,” Alec muttered. “What now?”

“The bad news is that someone has put all the sector check points on code red.”

Alec and Sam let out identical sighs.

Logan hadn't named a name but it went without saying that the someone was Ames White. Alec's numb fingers fidgeted with the damp sleeves of his permanently rain soaked coat. However, the lock down on all the sector points could mean only one thing- the demons in the nice suits had no idea where they were.

Alec let himself briefly enjoy the good news portion of Logan's report. “You did it,” he half smiled up at Sam. “You threw 'em off our tracks.”

It had been his father who had made the final decision to bring the tug south and practically into downtown. North would have been the smartest place to dump the boat and it would have brought them the closest to the least guarded border of the city limits. But Agent White knew that too. Alec had listened to the whisper of the agent's thoughts with his own two... well, not his ears exactly.

But the good news faded fast.

“Code red won't even get us in the check point line,” Alec said. “So much for the sector passes.”

“White has everyone on the look out,” Logan held his bandaged shoulder. “He's going to be watching for anything unusual.”

“W-We just have to be more careful now,” Sam tried to sound confident but his voice was soft with distraction. “We can still make it.”

“Sure we can,” Alec hesitantly stepped closer to his side. “Why wouldn't we? What's a matter?”

“I'm not sure,” Sam shook it off. “Ames White feels... he just feels different from the others.”

“Different how?” Alec wondered how different demons could be. “Like a worse demon? It's possible 'cause the guy might be the biggest prick I've ever met--”

“Not like that,” Sam said. “I don't know what it is but we'll have to worry about it later.”

Alec fought the question that had been nagging at him ever since they docked the boat and no machine guns had been waiting on shore to pulverize them into a fine bloody spray. He wanted to ask why Ames wasn't listening in on the same frequency they were on. But Alec knew the answer just like he'd known his grandfather's name and the license plate number on a black Chevy he'd never actually seen.

Demons all over the city were trying to hone in on their whereabouts but Sam wasn't letting them.

Alec had no idea how long his father could keep that trick up but he hoped it would be for long enough to get them to the Space Needle. The thought that his father had been quietly struggling to keep them safe for all this time made Alec clench his fists. He wanted Sam to know that he was capable of lending a hand too, he just didn't know exactly how yet.

Dean cleared his throat to announce his triumphant return.

“Don't all clap at once,” he warned. “But I scored on the high side because the dude was a little wasted.”

“That explains that one,” Alec squinted at the decrepit tug boat. “You shoulda told him never to drink-n-buy.”

“Can't hand out common sense, kid,” Dean shook out a wad of crumpled bills. “It's a tragedy in which we prosper--”

“We have a little problem,” Sam cut in. “Well, kind of a big one actually.”

“You heard something new?” Dean asked. “More... stuff in your head?”

Sam's tired gaze narrowed slightly at the suspicious tone. The Winchesters stared hard at each other until Logan broke the silence with an answer for Dean's question.

“N-Not exactly magic this time, fellas,” Logan held up his cell phone. “It was just a computer.”

“So what's the problem?” Dean shrugged. “Lay it on me.”

“We're stuck,” Sam started towards the shelter of warehouses that lined the wharf. “The sector passes and a fat bribe aren't gonna get us past the check points any more.”

Alec squeezed his eyes closed and allowed the seep of hiss and static to build in his mind. Without Sam's help it was just a bunch of random noise. He didn't know how to help out with anything except by not complaining about his annoying headache. Alec rubbed at his temples, the wire tap in his brain allowing him to sense the scratch of growing uncertainty in his father's agitated mind.

He suddenly perked.

"I can get us there."

"What?"

He didn't know much about battling the forces of evil, but he did know how to do one thing.

“I know a way past both the cops and the points,” Alec picked up his pace alongside Sam. “It takes a little longer but I can do it.”

“I don't know," Sam said. “With a code red there's going be extra drones in the sky. They'll spot us even faster if we start jumping fences in broad daylight.”

But his father was considering Alec with more interest than apprehension.

“No one will see us,” Alec promised. “Trust me.”

Sam smiled and the fresh hope Alec saw there made him smile right on back.

 

 

 

 

 

Traveling the older sections of the sewer line was much like Alec fondly remembered: dank, cramped and abundant with roaches. The stench was so powerful that his hyperactive olfactory receptors simply shut down. Oddly numb to all the smells around them, the transgenic was privately grateful for all of Manticore's careful contingencies in his engineering.

“A vacation just doesn't feel like a vacation unless you get to see all the sights, huh?” Dean choked. “When do we get to hunt uptown for a change?”

Alec pondered the thought of his uncle getting a look at Logan's penthouse and luxurious base of operations. “It's not much farther,” he lied. “Just eh, don't trip and fall in this stuff okay?”

An overloaded drainage system for a damaged city of millions wasn't the most pleasant place to take a hike but it was camera free. Flashlights supplemented their light source when they got too far between the weak filaments of the maintenance bulbs. Tapping into his speed, Alec occasionally ranged ahead in the ankle high muck to keep leading them in the right direction. They all grew quiet again as they concentrated on moving quickly through the oppressive dark. Alec winced when his boot came down hard on a wriggling body of a rat.

“I haven't heard much about you Winchesters on the network this year,” Logan began tentatively. “You guys have been laying low for a while.”

Alec didn't expect Logan to be the one to start talking first. He had no idea what a group of hunters sat around and talked about but these three hadn't done any secret handshakes or group hugs so far. Since the blur of the boat there hadn't been time for any normal conversation anyway.

“We've been trying to stay off the radar,” Dean said. “And its good to know even your world-wide ass can't track us all the time.”

Logan didn't smile back. “The last I saw were rumors about you both being detained by Mexican authorities down in Guadeloupe on some trespass charges.”

“You make it sound so civil,” Dean climbed up into the next tunnel. “More like left in a sweat box to rot for a few weeks.”

“I also heard a report that a few hunters were moving east towards--”

“Were you looking for a gate down there?” Alec interrupted Logan before he could tell himself to shut up. He had been thinking a lot about the years Sam and Dean had spent hunting. "Were you looking for ghosts? Goblins? Demons?”

“No,” Sam said. “We were looking for other children like you. Some of them... don't do so well on their own. We usually only find them if they get bad enough to start hitting the news. Serial murderers. Unusual mass kidnappings. Things like that.”

Alec tried not to think about the twin he'd never met.

“Do you kill them?” Logan asked softly.

“Depends,” Dean's casual tone sounded forced. “Once they go darkside there isn't much we can do about it.”

“Did you come here to kill Alec?”

Alec's flesh prickled under the heavy weight of their unease. It occurred to him that he didn't actually know what his family's intentions would have been if they had determined him unsuitable. There was also the small fact that Logan still didn't know he was walking alongside the transgenic's blood relatives.

“No one's here to kill anybody,” Dean said. “And no one's here to kill your girlfriend either, so just relax.”

Logan's relief was tangible but Alec could still tell the man had something else on his mind besides Max's safety from hunters.

“I-I understand you came here looking for X5s,” Logan said. “But are you sure we're... are you absolutely sure we're dealing with an actual gate?”

So that was what Eyes Only was really getting at. Because if that thing was real, the current threat to Max's health was much larger than a couple guys armed with holy water.

“'Fraid so,” Dean paused to swing his flashlight down the next dripping passage. “It's gonna make Hiroshima look like a nice sunny day.”

“But there's been no major demon activity reported here for over a decade,” Logan quickly insisted. “I've never found anything remotely linked to a gate verification on the entire north western seaboard. It's supposed to be safe here for X5s to--”

Logan abruptly stopped as his troubled gaze met with the transgenic's. Alec was puzzled to find guilt in the man's eyes.

“You did the right thing, Logan,” Sam said. “You couldn't tell them everything you knew. It would have just put them at further risk.”

Alec laughed a little to himself and silently agreed. If Max had known about all this crazy shit she probably would have gone for a little demon hunt herself.

“When I started out... when I first met Max... I thought I was going crazy,” Logan's guarded voice sounded like a confessional down here in the pitch black. "I found some protective wards. Some real old ones from the Book of Solomon. I thought they would help keep her safe. I carved them everywhere,” he breathed a laugh. “The streets she walked the most. Her apartment. I covered Alec's place too after he showed up in town. I even painted a few wards on the roof on the building where they work. God, do you know how hard it is to hide things like this from a couple of paranoid transgenics?”

Trailing behind the three men, Alec suddenly felt as far away from Logan as he did from his new family. Logan turned and caught the look on the X5's face.

“It took me years to figure out the connection between Manticore and the supernatural, Alec. It took me even longer to come to terms to what I was seeing was even real,” he shook his head as he explained. “I started by helping hunters out in the field with technical pieces of information that some uh...” he looked over at Sam and Dean apprehensively. “...the average individual wouldn't have access too.”

“I think he just called us hicks with a lame laptop,” Dean elbowed his brother. “Don't feel bad, Sam. You'll always be a fancy Stanford drop-out to me.”

“But a hell's gate covering the entire city?” Logan repeated in disbelief. “How could I have missed something like that?”

“We all missed it, dude,” Dean said. “If you haven't noticed these bastards are pretty good at hiding things right under everyone's noses--”

“What are they gonna do to Max?”

Alec's sudden question made them all fall into an uncomfortable silence again.

“We'll find her,” Dean didn't turn around. “Just concentrate on not gettin' us lost down here.”

“You might as well tell me,” Alec muttered. “I can hear everything from the kid's table anyway.”

“Okay, Alec," Sam exchanged a look with his brother in the dim glow of the flashlights. “I guess what you should understand right now is that... that every lock requires a key.”

“Sounds logical,” Alec gaze shifted uncertainly between them. “So what's the key look like? If they already have it than why do they need one of us for--”

“Manticore figured out how to create its own hybrids that could get inside the traps placed on the locks,” Sam said. “And Manticore also designed the hybrids to act as the mechanism to open them up.”

“People?” Alec felt sick. “The keys are ...people?”

“Disposal people,” Dean said. “Your friend ain't gonna live to see all the pretty hell fire. The lock is gonna rip her to shreds.”

Logan's flashlight clattered loudly onto the shallow dirty water.

“Uh... theoretically,” Dean quickly amended. “So to speak.”

The moldy metal ladder was right where Alec's memory said it should be.

He climbed the narrow cement passage upwards until his hands felt the sealed grate overhead. Heaving with all his might, the rusted bolts finally snapped and the hatch flung open to stars glittering overhead through the clouds. The night had come and the storm looked like it was finally breaking up. Alec pushed himself up to a crouch and crawled forward towards the sidewalk. A traffic light hanging over the intersection cycled to red and back to green with not a single car, taxi or truck in sight.

The usually crowded streets of sector 3 were completely and utterly deserted.

A cold chill ran down Alec's spine as he heard a single noise echo through the abandoned city blocks. Bleak and lonely, the sound rang off the buildings and masked its source. Alec cocked his head when he heard it again joined with a chorus of others. It was the harsh cries of some kind of animal he couldn't identify.

Shrinking back against the brick wall he felt a little better when Dean settled almost soundlessly behind him. His father came next, his step heavier and less sure. Logan came last and the noisiest. Now that Alec's senses had revived with fresh air, he could smell the blood coming from the wound on his shoulder.

“Let's move fast,” Dean whispered. “And stay quiet.”

Alec took the gun his uncle eased into his palm and wordlessly nodded in agreement. But one look at Sam told him that sneaking around wasn't all that important any more. His father walked right past them and out into the middle of the street. Looking upwards at the looming shadow of the Space Needle, Sam slowly pointed to its very top.

“The lock,” he said. “It's up there.”

All the static murmuring in Alec's head stuttered to a roar along with the distant howls rising up through the darkness. The time for hiding was over because whatever was out there was waiting for them.

And they were right on time.


	13. Here We Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, i'm stupidly excited with the maybe, with negative thousand people reading the BANG. But? I know there is a least one of you there. So, it is so SO getting started...! (as in, WithaBang doesn't go down so easy) Thanks

Manticore had taught Alec more about common sense than he cared to admit.

There had been no weekend camping trips about self-empowerment or team building work shops, but X5-494 had learned early on what really kept a solider alive. What it always came down to in the end was the ability to keep from losing your mind to the fear. If he couldn’t get his shit together all by himself then his handlers made sure he was injected with enough chemical courage to keep him walking on broken legs.

Those were the good old days all right.

And right now the only thing keeping Alec from running in the opposite direction of the Space Needle was pure pride. There was no way he was going to punk out in front of these three particular men. Not yet anyway. Over the years Alec had also learned that a hasty last minute retreat was no reason for shame.

“Stay sharp,” Sam said from ahead. “We're close.”

Logan responded by picking up his limping pace from the rear. Alec wondered how that bullet wound in his shoulder was doing. A couple of pills from yesterday weren’t going to be doing much for the guy now. The fact that Logan hadn’t uttered one complaint about the pain made Alec get a firmer grip on his frayed nerves.

He readjusted his grip on his gun and realized his hands were shaking.

“Smell that?” Dean was right behind him at his shoulder. “The fun never stops in this town.”

Now that his uncle mentioned it, there was something odd wafting in on the sluggish breeze. Alec had been thinking about dying too much to notice the faint scent of sulfur in the air. But he also caught something else on the wind and that was the scent of human bodies. It got stronger and stronger until he almost choked on it. So many bodies that they mixed and mingled through his senses and began to swarm in his thoughts.

Alec rubbed at his forehead.

The garbled whispering seeping into his mind rose sharply enough to make his step falter. It was getting a little too loud in his head again. He shared a look with his father and knew Sam could hear the rumble of human static too.

“White’s people are nearby,” Sam murmured. “About a hundred yards ahead.”

“Right under the gate,” Dean said. “That’s inconvenient.”

“How many?” Logan asked.

“Not sure,” Sam shrugged. “A few thousand maybe.”

Logan blinked at him in disbelief. “I-I'm sorry, did you say thousand--"

"Yup," Dean sighed. "That's what he said."

"A few thousand,” Logan repeated. “And how do you suppose us four are going to get past that?”

Alec kept his own questions to himself when he saw his father exchange a grim look with Dean.

“They won’t bother us,” Sam answered. “Not yet anyway.”

Alec held his gun higher.

A few thousand people in one place were supposed to make some noise. Human beings walked, talked and created more racket than an average machine. But even as they turned down another cross street, Alec still couldn’t pick up a single thing but their own footsteps.

“So,” Dean’s shoulder knocked into his. “You into any bands?”

“What?”

“Bands. Ya know, rock bands?”

Alec knew a distraction tactic when he saw one and he wasn’t really in the mood.

“Sure, I guess,” he mumbled. “Whatever they play in the elevator is fine with me.”

Dean made a small sound of disgust.

That damn howling started up again. The hollow cries rose through the empty streets and echoed through the buildings. X5-494 and been sent into a lot of hazardous situations but he hadn’t experienced terror very often. He’d been through plenty of other unpleasant forms of anxiety, but this was a whole new ball game. Alec had never had this cold streak of dread that was running down his spine and making it hard to put one foot in front of the other.

Dean’s hand was embarrassingly comforting when Alec paused to catch his breath against a brick wall. He wasn’t winded. It was all nerves and they were getting the better of him right when he could least afford it—

“So music,” Dean said. “Do you like anything not composed on a Casio keyboard?”

“Oh,” Alec quickly tried to recall some song he had committed to memory that hadn’t been required. “I guess I like it? I mean, I like some of the stuff I hear at Crash. That’s a club. Not that I like clubs but they have a bar and... and I like drinking?”

“Drinkin’ huh? Yeah, me too.” Dean grinned. “Hard to get decent beer these days.”

“Yeah, it sucks.”

“I ever tell you about my ride?”

An old car flashed over and over behind Alec’s eyes with a hundred different sunsets glinting off the black paint. His uncle had never told him a word about the Chevy, but his head was filled with memories of its rumbling engine and comfortable worn leather seats.

“When this is all over you’ll see her,” Dean told him. “Hell, when this is over she might be all yours.”

Alec allowed himself to be eased back into a slow walk behind the others. He took a deep breath and tried to forget that it wasn’t just Manticore’s enhancement drugs that had made him able to fight. He tried to remember that what was left over after all the chemicals was just what he’d been naturally born with. His mouth twitched in a smile.

Winchester genes.

The sound of multiple pistols being cocked brought him back to the business at hand. They’d finally turned onto Broad Street and the Needle was only half a block away. Between them and the tower were a shadowy mass of all those people Sam had mentioned. Concentrated in a perfect circle around the base, they all stood facing the structure with their backs to the outside.

A few thousand was a good estimate but Alec thought his father might have been a little on the low side. “We’re screwed,” he hissed. “Now what?”

“We keep walking,” Sam lead the way. “It’ll be okay.”

As they grew closer Alec realized that none of the bizarrely silent congregation were moving. Every single one of them stood as still and rigid as a statue. When Sam reached the outer dispersion of the crowd, he slowed the group further with the caution of stepping into a minefield.

“What’s wrong with them?” Alec looked into one blank face after another. “What are they doing?”

“They’re waiting,” Dean muttered. “So tune it down and keep movin’.”

“Waiting for what?”

The assembled crowd was made up of men and women, all oddly in the same range of height and size. For some reason that detail seemed stranger to Alec than the fact that they were all also dressed the same. Every last one of them was garbed in dark red robes like out of some horror movie.

“They’ve come here for the gate haven’t they?” Logan whispered behind him. “They came here to become vehicles for possession.”

“You mean they came here on their own?” Alec thought of Demon-Meg’s attempt to hijack his body. “Willingly?”

“Don’t touch any of them,” Sam warned. “You hear me, Alec?”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“You were right, Sammy,” Dean sighed. “This White guy is a major player. Looks like we got ourselves a cult and I’d guess they’re all a bunch of purebreds too.”

Alec backed stepped away from the closest robed figure. Each one had similar facial features to each other along with matching builds. Every one of them had the same lost look in their cloudy gray eyes. And not gray for much longer if they didn’t hurry up. This passive mob was going to get ugly real fast once the demons started putting up the no vacancy signs.

They all came to a sudden stop when Sam did.

Knowing his father was picking up a lot more then he could perceive, Alec watched for a cue on how to continue. His gaze wandered six hundred feet up to the top of the hell’s gate and the lock it had hidden in its saucer.

Max was somewhere up there too.

Alec swallowed and brought his focus back down to ground level. He’d get in and he’d get to the top. After that someone else would know what to do and then all this bullshit would be over and done with—

The concrete was sharp under his knees.

Alec stared down at his hands and tried to remember falling. Panic flared cold in his belly as he realized he couldn’t get back up. He couldn’t even make a sound. All he could feel was a sensation like boiling water being poured over his skin, hissing and spreading through him with the clamor of voices now overflowing in his head. Struggling to stay conscious, Alec was vaguely aware that Logan had collapsed on the ground next to him. Sam and Dean were down too. A foreign voice, Ames White’s voice, was seeping through with all the rest of the racket. The scorching heat of the agent’s fury coursed through Alec’s mind, obliterating every coherent thought like fire. But Alec could make out someone else’s call in the din too.

His father.

“Sam?” Alec felt the grit of the pavement biting into the palms of his hands. “I-I can’t move.”

_Help me, Alec._

Alec wheezed out a laugh. “What? I-I don’t—“

_Do it now or we all die._

“I can’t do anything,” he could barely breathe.

_Try._

“I don’t know how,” he squeezed his eyes shut. “I-I’m sorry.”

The only thing Alec could feel was his own rage. It was thrumming through his veins and burning so hot that he thought his heart might burst. His blood was pounding behind his eyes with the cold slither of Ames White’s voice. With a snarl, he forced himself to his feet and got ready to scream as loud as he could to drown out the tumult clamoring in his brain.

Thatta boy.

He couldn’t see Sam but somehow he knew his father was smiling.

Everything suddenly went still.

A cool rush flowed over Alec’s skin and the agony began to recede. He gasped as he felt something swelling rapidly from inside his chest and grow outwards like a bubble. Stunned, he flexed the energy like an unknown muscle, stretching it further until it surrounded his entire body. With a strong exhale he pushed it in every direction he could think of. Backwards, forwards, up and down. He was doing it. He had no fucking idea how, but he was doing it. His senses traveled with the surface of the bubble, over Logan’s body beside him and even further until it gently bounced up against something else just like it. Alec looked up and saw an identical sphere expanding around his father and uncle. The two bubbles burst upon contact with one another and showered down a faint light like a mist of rain.

“What the hell was that?” Dean held his hands out as the luminescence sprinkled around them. “It felt like- it felt like something was turning my head inside out.”

“It was Ames White,” Sam breathlessly got to his feet. “Don’t worry, we won’t let him do it again.”

Alec realized he’d assisted his father deflect some kind of attack. One they couldn’t even see coming. Logan hadn’t risen from his knees, his breath coming short and shallow in his throat. Eyes Only wasn’t doing so hot. That whammy from White plus the shoulder injury was finally putting him out of commission.

A dull boom rocked the ground under their feet.

“Aw crap,” Dean growled. “Here it comes.”

The night abruptly lit up and Alec stumbled backwards, squinting at the sick brilliance lighting up the sky. It bloomed over the buildings like a sunrise, eating up the shadows and revealing everything under its hideous glare. Just as the light peaked to white it begin to rapidly dim until the stars were winking once again in the dark above.

All the people surrounding them had started a slow mindless shuffle towards the tower’s base. A chorus of howls began coming from their gaping mouths that Alec had previous assumed was coming from animals.

The hunters and Alec closed into a tight circle around Logan.

“It’s started,” Sam's voice broke. “They unlocked the gate.”

Alec looked frantically around. He couldn’t see the man but the bastard was here somewhere. He knew now that Ames White’s grand plan had never been in any danger of being stopped by a few hunters and one rogue transgenic. The agent had been waiting for them to show up. All this had been one big run-around so White could get off on having them front row at ground zero for the fireworks. But Alec didn't see hell's chariots being driven down the streets or flames bursting from the manholes. Besides from the herd of catatonic zombies it looked like the same old city he'd always known.

His eyes narrowed on the saucer above.

_There._

Ames White was up there with the lock and the key.

“We have to get out of here,” Dean had hauled Logan to his feet and was backing up. “Right the fuck now.”

“What about the city, Dean!” Sam closed their circle tighter as the mob thickened to crowd the gate. “What about—“

“I said no, Sammy! I listened to you and now you’re gonna listen to me. And I say we haul ass while there’s still a chance in hell of getting out of here alive!“

Alec turned back towards the tower.

Things weren’t finished here yet. There was still time left to do something besides sight-see. More importantly, there might be time to put a transgenic’s right hook through Ames White’s chest cavity and see if the man really had a heart in there somewhere.

“Get Logan out of here,” Alec’s thoughts flashed to Max and he clenched both fists. “Tell him I tried.” He was already shouldering his way through the lumbering masses and headed for the Needle’s entrance.

His father’s grasp, as strong as it was, wasn’t enough to restrain an X5. But Alec stopped in his tracks anyway.

“S-She’s my friend,” Alec clutched at the hands that were trying to pull him back. “Please… I-I have to go.”

Alec pleaded. With his mind, his eyes and touch. He used every sense he owned to beg Sam to understand. His father opened and shut his mouth twice before Dean finally pried his grip off of Alec’s arms.

“Okay, you win,” Dean dragged a hand roughly across his eyes. “We’ll follow you,” he promised. “Just… just get up there as fast as you can.”

Alec knew even his fastest might not be good enough to stop whatever was happening at the top of that tower. But he felt a selfish relief that he wasn’t going to be left alone no matter what. And considering Alec had never tried to close a hell’s gate before he figured now if ever was the time to ask for some sagely parental advice.

“What should I do?”

“Don’t get yourself killed,” Dean patted him hard on the chest. “Or I’ll kill you myself.”

Alec nodded once and got ready to run.

But Sam was still holding on tightly to his shoulder. “Take this.”

Alec took the colt revolver from his father and hefted its clunky weight. The last time he’d seen the weapon in action it hadn’t been much good against the bad guys, but a magic bullet sounded better than nothing at all. Alec flashed his family a smile that he hoped was reassuring and started to blur between the bodies jammed in his way. Closing one hand over the gun inside his jacket, he barely noticed the lobby streaking by with the desperate shrieks of the pressing horde.

By the time he hit the dank stairwell all his thoughts were on one thing and one thing only.

Ames White and exactly how the man was going to die.


	14. Chapter 14

Alec lost the sound of the restless howling the further he climbed up through the tower’s core.

There was a strong wind coming down the steep passageway, the blowing smog that hung hundreds of feet over the city caught by the open wreck of the saucer and channeled down the stairwell like an engine funneling exhaust. When Alec finally ran out of steps he was out of breath, the blurry sight of the observation deck swimming in and out of focus until he could stop the stutter in his lungs.

The place looked pretty much the same as the last time he’d seen it.

For a 1962 architectural tribute to the glorious future, the monument to mankind had seen better times. No societies of historical preservation were wasting their time trying to keep the paint job authentic when most of the city was being swallowed whole by its own sewer system. Most of the windows that lined the saucer were missing and only half were replaced with a thick plastic tarp. The material was ripped and torn from the constant wind, flapping like rags through the panes across the walls and ceiling. Like every other floor he had passed on his way up, the deck had been gutted by a few decades of squatters.

“I’m here,” Alec whispered into the murk. “And I know you can see me.”

With one last glance towards the dark stairwell, he took a deep breath. Until his backup made it up the 848 steps, this was going to be a solo operation.

“Max?” he ventured in a louder voice. “Max! Where are you!”

He paused by one of the broken windows to look down at the glow of the city lights.

Max used to escape here all the time for some solace. It had always annoyed him that she acted like it was some magic spot in the clouds that she could pretend to be alone. But to her defense, the old landmark wasn’t trespassed very often. Besides a few brave artists that liked to beautify the saucer with panoramas of spray paint, no one came up here unless they were thinking of jumping off.

“You hiding, Ames? You scared of me?”

A ripple of static answered him this time, brushing against his brain like it wanted to more than just to touch. Alec thought of the trick he and Sam had pulled off on the street below and wondered if he was still protecting himself from White in the same way. Bracing himself for anything, he took another careful look around the large round room.

It appeared deserted but his new senses could detect another heartbeat.

“Hi, Alec.”

The sudden sound of Max’s voice made him stiffen up, his battle stance loosening joints and tightening muscles.

Her silhouette slowly separated from a shadow under one of the windows. Seated at the bottom of the empty frame, she gave him a small friendly wave. Alec had had no idea what kinds of weird crap he was going to find during a hell’s gate ceremony but Max sitting around enjoying the view wasn’t one of them.

“Quite a turn out down there, huh?” she leaned back and rested an elbow on a knee. “White says when this whole thing really gets started it’s gonna get even more busy. You know, limited seating and all.”

Alec stepped closer, aware of her battle readiness even at rest, and felt all the fear he’d stifled threaten to take over again. He clenched his jaw when her eyes became visible with the rest of her bruised face, but there was no glossy black from pupil to retina. The vacant fierceness to her gaze still wasn’t hers though. Neither was the subtle twitch of her smile.

She pointed at the glitter of the city below.

“Anyone left in the sectors are going to start running to the check points to get out,” her laugh was breathless and strange. “Then it’ll be easy to pick them off, one by one. Like an assembly line.”

Alec searched the dark for any sign that this place was going to be used to tear open a doorway to another dimension. It would have been nice to see a stone altar dripping with blood complete with red candles. But there was nothing to be seen but left over trash and broken beer bottles.

And Max.

“I-It’s okay now,“ Alec stammered. “I’m here to—“

“Save me?”

Alec gave up on explaining and just put up his fists.

“I knew you’d show up eventually,” Max sighed and got to her feet. “Ames kept having his doubts but I kept telling him, just wait. Alec is like a roach. You can’t keep 494 out of the good stuff no matter how hard you try.”

“What’d they do to you, Max?”

“Ya jealous?” she asked.

Alec winced when he saw the smile grow on her ruined face. They’d spent some quality time breaking down X5-452. Dismantling her physically in ways that only a transgenic could survive. He couldn’t even begin to think what they might have done to her head.

“You’ll be just like me soon,” she said. “I thought my Manticore implants were good but ever since I handed over the controls I’ve gotten all sorts of nifty new upgrades. I can see and hear everything now. I could even hear you down there saying goodbye to daddy.”

Alec stepped closer.

“By the way, ten years sure is a long time,” Max cracked a shoulder and flexed a fist. “You sure those guys really were looking for a family reunion? Because with this gate all greased and ready to go, I’d think they’d only show up now to make sure you didn’t screw everything up.”

“I gotta ask,” Alec forced a smile back. “Do these demon packages always come with a free side of babbling? Because every one I’ve met so far sure likes to run at the mouth.”

Max’s smile faded into a grim angry line. “You think the Winchesters are going to adopt a demonic transgenic and go for a family road trip?” she demanded. “Christmas Eve and birthday parties? Are you really that fucking stupid, Alec?”

Alec tensed when her anger brought her into the weak light pooled in the center of the room. He had no delusions about the hope of matching her in full physical combat. And with the added bonus of whatever she was juiced on now, he had no idea if he could hold his own for even a few minutes despite her injuries. But he knew one thing. As long as she was talking she wasn’t trying to kill him, and that bought some time.

“I’m the stupid one?” he added a small laugh that never failed to annoy Max in any incarnation. “I’m not the one making deals.”

Alec felt sick as soon as the words left his mouth. If Max’s indoctrination was anything like his encounter with Meg-Demon then he knew there weren’t a ton of options involved. There was only manipulation and pain. And when the minds of Manticore got creative they really knew how to get the most stubborn of their progeny into cooperation mode.

“The Winchesters are gonna use you like the tool you are,” Max hissed. “Maybe like a pet blood hound to keep in the backseat. When you’re a good boy they’ll let you run out on a chain to sniff out all the corpses.“

“Shut up,” Alec didn’t like the tremor in his voice. “It-It's not like that."

“We are your family,” Max pointed at her chest. “This is where you belong.”

He didn’t see her coming, just felt her weight as he was savagely knocked to the ground. Every defensive strike his body automatically engaged in was deflected, his arms forced down over his head with only one of her hands. Alec struggled for a few moments before knowing brute force was a lost cause.

“Max,” he breathed around the grip crushing this throat. “W-Whatever they did to you, it’s not too late, we can leave, we can get out of here—“

“Shhhhh,” her finger pressed against his mouth. “Ames White gave me what Manticore never did. He gave me a choice.”

The distinction of White being somehow apart from Manticore momentarily confused him. “He’s going to kill people, Max,” Alec gasped. “Everybody we know is going to be dead if we don’t do something!”

“Not everybody,” Max said quietly. “White said he’d save Logan. The others too if-if I did what he said.”

“He’s lying!” Alec tried. “You have to listen to me!“

The determined look in her dark eyes faltered but her fingers continued to squeeze at his larynx. Alec’s vision whitened as his air supply was pinched off and stars began bursting behind his eyes. But then her crushing hold suddenly went slack. To his dazed disbelief he watched her sit up and work her shaking fists into his jacket.

“A-Alec, I’m sorry,” she drew in a shuddering breath “I can’t stop it now. I can’t—“

“All right, it’s all right,” Alec repeated it over and over to her. “I’ll get you out of here.” His own trembling hands smoothed back her hair as she crumpled on top of him. He could get them both out of here if she let him. Logan would know a way to help her and if he didn’t then his father would know what to do. Alec rolled over onto his knees, and shouldered Max up close. He didn’t know how long she was going to play nice and he had to move fast.

But pure animal instinct made him go very still.

Alec felt a chill wash down his spine and knew they were not alone. He didn’t have to look around to find the man that had brought them all here. Ames White was standing just a few yards away in the doorway Alec had come from. The agent was dressed in a pressed suit, hands placed causally in the trouser pockets. But his attention wasn’t fixed on them.

The agent was looking at the colorful graffiti that covered the walls.

“Have you read this?” White asked in disgust. “It’s written all over the place.”

The wall beside them was one layer after another of spray paint but one quote had been carefully etched out over the scrawl of the rest. It was one of the passages by TS Eliot that Alec had been made to memorize during his studies as a child.

_This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
Not with a bang but a whimper._

“Poets,” White growled. ”Don’t you just want to tell the miserable bastards to look on the bright side every now and then?”

Max sagged against Alec’s side and clutched at his arm. Alec realized she was trying to stand up but she couldn’t. Her body temperature was skyrocketing along with a sulfuric scent coming off her skin that made Alec want to spit. Ames White was using the ‘key’ to open his gate and it seemed to be a slow process that didn’t involve any Indiana Jones props.

Alec realized with a flare of panic that he didn’t know what to do to stop this. How was he supposed to stop something that he couldn't even see? Squeezing his eyes shut, he listened through the jumble of static in his head for some sign of his father’s voice. He eased a hand into his jacket and felt the weight of the colt.

“Do you believe in prophecy, 494?”

Alec blinked in confusion up into the agent’s pure black eyes.

“All of this was always meant to be,” White leaned against the verse on the wall and crossed his arms. “This world will fade away quietly until no one knows where hell starts and earth begins. Our plan takes years. Our plan is the one that will work.”

“Yeah, I know all about the plan,” Alec muttered. “Breeding, keys, locks and whatever—“

“Not my father’s plan. Sandeman was a fool.”

Alec’s mind was suddenly assaulted with new pictures and words.

“Oh, all of Hell has factions and it gets crowded at the top,” White grinned. “Sandeman was never my boss. Neither was Azazel.”

Alec groaned as images of Colonel Lydecker flashed with his eyes boiling an angry yellow. His true name of Azazel had been withheld from all the human beings that had served him. Alec searched White’s face for any sign that a human still existed underneath there somewhere. All Alec saw staring back at him was alien and cold. There was nothing left inside this shell, the demon had smoldered inside the flesh for too long and burned it all away.

The colt lay heavy and cold in his lap.

White ignored it and knelt down to look him in the eye. “My boss is on the fast track to success and She has a much better take on how to run this miserable planet. Not with mongrels but with Her Chosen.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Ames White was nonplussed by the blasphemy. “Her children are down there waiting to become an army. Some will go into government. The church. The military. Even the entertainment biz. We are waiting all over the world to take our places as this planet’s ruling elite.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Don’t worry, 494,” White patted Alec’s cheek hard. “You’ll get your chance to serve Her. In fact, we’ll need a powerful one like you for New York City in a few years. But we can keep you nice and comfortable until then.”

“Yer a fancy half-breed too, right? So why don’t you do it?” Alec snarled. “Sounds like a great big fat honor.”

“Sorry. Not my destiny,” White sighed. “I have another role to play.”

Alec was distracted by something flickering overhead. There was another source of light in the dim room that wasn’t coming from the outside. It looked like he’d been all wrong about the lack of embellishment in the ceremonial ribbon cutting. Along with the graffiti there had been something else carved into the walls, floors and ceiling. Bright molten red ran fluidly through the twists and curve of symbols like blood, lighting up the room like a neon sign.

“You see 494, I wasn’t born just to die.”

Max cried out and slumped heavily in Alec's arms. He tried to hold onto her as she writhed, sobs tearing from the back of her throat as the light oozed down the walls and began to flow across the floor.

Ames White smirked. “I was born to reign.”

Alec steadied the revolver and aimed it at the center of the agent’s forehead. White studied the old pistol before smiling at the transgenic indulgently. Clearing his throat and adjusting his silk tie, the man prepared to speak.

Alec stopped him with a raised hand. “I know what you’re gonna say,” he assured him. “Your death won’t stop a thing? Why waste a perfectly good mystical bullet? The gate will be opened regardless of your brain splatter and so on and so forth…?”

White’s gaze narrowed.

“But I’m okay with all that,” Alec told him. “See ya on the other side, Ames.”

He had a fraction of a second to enjoy seeing the agent’s eyes widen before he pulled the trigger. He had another few moments to watch the man’s body fall lifelessly to the ground before the room soundlessly ignited. Then all he could see was the fire. Groping in the rain of flames he found Max’s body and hauled her up. He started moving where he knew the stairs were, the roar and boom of the air ripping overhead deafening him to nothing but the jagged sound of his own breathing.

But in the middle of the chaos he heard a far off voice.

Alec?

“Sam?” Alec heard himself rasp. “Sam, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t—“

This way, Alec...

The sound of Sam’s voice grew louder and louder until Alec stumbled and felt the cool concrete of the stairwell under his hands. He pulled Max down each flight of stairs, his eyes watering from the searing smoke as it churned and boiled down the walls. Alec dully realized that something else was rushing through the flames with them. The flitting shapes that whisked overhead were demons seeping through the gate’s cracks, fleeing their prison and rushing towards the waiting disciples below. He forced his legs to keep moving even when he could barely draw in another lung full of charred air. Max was limp in his arms, and soon the steady descent down into the orange glare convinced him that a rift had really torn open underneath them. The entrance to hell was a gaping chasm that had heaved wide like a wound in the earth that lead nowhere forever. His hands felt out the start of another flight of stairs in the smother of smoke, the railing blistering hot under his touch.

Alec staggered to his knees.

Pure adrenaline got him up two more times before he tumbled painfully down onto the slope of the steps. Max’s body was warm on top of his. He hadn’t let her go.

“Damn it,” he growled. “Get up. Get up. Get up.”

It took him a moment to realize he actually was getting up. But Alec spent a few more confounded moments to understand he wasn’t moving on his own power. He was being lifted and a wet cloth was dragged over his eyes and mouth, a momentary relief from the sting of smoke and blinding ash. Someone had taken Max from him—

“Easy!” someone said. “Take it easy!”

Alec struggled for another second, thinking that one of those freaks in the robes had found him. They were going to drag him the rest of the way to Hades if he couldn’t make the journey fast enough on his own. He twisted in their hands, hoping to send them all crashing down the next flight of stairs and snap all of their necks on the way—

“Settle down,” Sam’s voice was strained. “We got you.”

Alec stilled, his hands feeling for the face he couldn’t see.

“The girl is still breathing, Sammy,” Dean was nearby. “We gotta move. Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Alec felt Sam’s grip on him tighten as they emerged suddenly into fresh air. Stumbling blind behind his father, he knew they had somehow made it outside. They had done it. They had gotten out. But the bewildered moans of White’s followers were all around them. Thousands and thousands of the cult were all still eager to receive what they’d been promised. Alec felt their hands tear at his clothing as Sam pushed them through the crushing throng. When they were unable to go any further, his father shoved Alec between himself and Dean, closing a circle with Max at its center. Alec tried to focus his blurry eyes and could see nothing but his father’s shirt pressed against his face.

“Can you help me?” Sam whispered. “Just one more time.”

Alec nodded.

The bubble came easy this time.

He didn’t have to open his eyes to see the sphere of light spreading out from his center and joining with something larger and brighter at his side. The surge of energy expanded and extinguished the cries from the hordes around them like a soft breath to a candle flame. Somewhere behind them Alec could feel the hell gate slowly grinding to a halt on its pivot and begin to reverse its direction. The key was gone from the lock and so was all the magic to create the path. The outraged shriek of the whipping black hell’s spawn quieted as the door sealed back in their faces. As the waver of light surrounding them quietly grew and grew, Alec faded and faded until all he knew was that they were moving again.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I still here?”

His father laughed softly.

The bubble of light had grown so big he could feel everything that existed within a mile around them. Every inch of pavement, each molecule of air, and everything in between was in his hands. Alec could see Logan hidden safely and waiting for them just a few blocks ahead. He could feel each beat of Max’s heart as it grew stronger and faster with every step that took her further from the tower. He could hear the steady tread of Sam and Dean’s boots on the asphalt on either side of him. Alec's own footsteps faltered and his father quickly picked him the rest of the way up... He could go higher if he wanted, the trees, the clouds, the satellites, the stars—

"That's enough," his father held him close. "You have to stop now."

Alec reluctantly loosened his grasp and as quickly as it had ballooned and stretched, the bubble swiftly receded. It rushed back to its source, shrinking rapidly into a size so small that left Alec with his hands cupped over his pounding heart. The hot flow of blood pooled over his upper lip and he licked at it, wondering if a nosebleed was the only price for popping all his own circuit breakers at once.

The streets were filled with fallen bodies. The red robes looked like blood but there wasn't a single mark on any one of them.

"We did that," Alec said. "We killed them."

Sam touched his forehead to Alec's with a pained sigh.

Feeling the last of his energy wane, Alec allowed himself to slip the rest of the way under. But before he was gone completely, an uneasiness settled among the drift of his thoughts. After it was said and done, it had turned out that Ames White had been right.

The end had been as quiet as the fall of the rain.


	15. Chapter 15

chapter 15

 

A few thousand dead bodies lying around the Space Needle had caused quite a stir even in a city used to its share of causal slaughter. As soon as the security grid came back online and the cameras started picking up images of downtown, all municipal hell broke loose.

So to speak.

The cops got so thick topside that Dean made the executive decision that they would not venture from the safety of the sewer until the coast was clear. The wait turned out to last the rest of the night and into the early hours of dawn. Once Alec’s abused senses emerged back into fresh air again, he was happy to know that their new collective mission was to go hide in the much less fragrant shelter of Logan’s place. Unfortunately, the fastest way to get through the sector checks during a security alert was via public transportation.

Alec had envisioned many hardcore action scenarios of fleeing the crime scene but waiting around at a bus stop hadn’t been on the top five.

“Some night, huh?” Dean managed to make the stiff plastic bench look comfortable. “That was one for the books.”

Alec kind of liked how his uncle made the whole thing sound like a particularly harrowing bowling game.

“Is she okay?” Logan asked. “She hasn’t moved in an hour.”

“She’s fine,” Dean patted Max on the hip. “Just needs to sleep it off.”

Dean had designated himself as Max’s caretaker ever since they’d left the Space Needle. She hadn’t ever really woken up long enough to protest the arrangement, but her body stayed curled up neatly under Dean’s arm like an animal seeking warmth. The leather jacket over her shoulders hid her mostly from view, the too long sleeves tied and knotted like a straight jacket for extra heat. Alec could only see the pale curve of her cheek and a tangle of dark hair but she looked great to him.

Better than great because she was completely and without a doubt alive.

“Maybe I should write about last night,” Logan was half dreaming with painkillers from a drug dealer they’d mugged a few blocks back. “You know, something to pass down through the ages like the old bards did.”

“Good idea,” Dean had taken a few pain killers himself. “But if I were you I’d skip the parts with all the raw sewage. Although a little grit does keep the gig glamorous.”

Alec slouched sideways to catch the newscast flickering over the bus stop. The monitor kept rotating back and forth between sneaker logo ads and the 24-hour international news station. Seattle only got a five second time slot up against a few mudslides over in Indonesia and another week of genocide running through the coast of east Africa.

Looked like business in the big wide world was carrying on without a hitch.

No tickers under the pretty anchors about demon armies. No panic in the streets. Just a strange overnight death toll and a few half-hearted accusations of bio-terrorism.

“Wait till the reporters find out about the robes,” Dean promised. “They’ll spin this into something awesome by tonight.”

Alec wondered for the first time what the ramifications of that could possibly be. Was there even a protocol for that kind of thing? The president airing on every station to announce the existence of Hell would make for some kick-ass prime time television. “Everyone will find out about the gate. A-And then what?”

Sam shrugged. “Then nothing.”

“The Needle was on fire,” Alec pointed at the fuzzy monitor overhead. “Not to mention deceased Caucasians all over the streets. And lemme tell you, there’s nothing an alive Caucasian hates to hear about more than a dead one.”

“It won’t even get that far,” Logan sighed. “The world just isn’t ready for this stuff. Even with reliable evidence all of this will be buried in a week.”

“’Fraid Logan is right,” Dean shook his head. “All this is gettin’ is a cover on World Weekly with some bullshit mass suicide theory complete with aliens.”

Alec wasn’t sure if that was a relief or not.

The battered bus arrived and they all quickly climbed on board. Alec had a moment of worry that they might stick out amongst the crowd but one look at the crowd in question made him forget all about that. Alec got a whiff of himself and winced. Not to mention that fresh out of the toilet smell they were all currently sporting.

“I paid the driver to make an extra stop,” Logan informed them all. “He’ll take us to the edge of the blockades and then we walk from there.”

“Will there be a de-briefing?” Alec wanted to see a different look on Logan’s face. “Coffee and donuts?”

“Now yer talkin’,” Dean stretched out and crossed his ankles. “I need to de-brief the ever living shit out of myself for at least 12 hours.”

“There’s plenty of room for all of you,” Logan said. “And you can stay as long as you’d like.”

“All of us huh?” Dean whistled. “How big is this apartment exactly?”

“Well,” Logan’s voice shifted to embarrassment. “It’s actually a penthouse.”

“No shit?” Dean said. “You steal it?”

“Not exactly,” another pained admission. “My family gave it to me.”

Alec rolled his eyes. Anybody could find shame these days. Shame because you had too little. Shame because you had too much…

He got up and headed for the back of the bus to get some distance while he could still get it. Sharing his brain and all the airspace of a square city block of zombies had left him feeling like his head was a pocket that got flipped inside out. Problem was it also felt like he couldn’t tuck it back in. He stared out the window while the bus’s crappy fluorescents went in and out. Giving and taking his reflection back to him over and over again. He looked fucking tired. He looked a little scared too.

Sam ignored Alec’s obvious desire to be alone and sat across the aisle from him.

“Before you ask, I feel like crap.” Alec mumbled. “And yourself?”

“I’m okay.”

Alec studied Sam’s weary features and recalled how different his father had been after his fight with the Meg-Demon. However, this round with the forces of darkness just left Sam looking run down like everyone else. Alec knew he had something to do with his father’s new and improved battery but he wasn’t sure what. He swallowed back a sick feeling as he thought of all those hearts that stopped beating all in one instant.

His dad and him sure did some great team work.

“T-Those people,” he said quietly. “It barely even felt like trying and then they were just gone.“

Sam let out a slow steady breath and nodded only once. “This war takes no prisoners, Alec.”

Alec looked at the sad resolve in Sam’s eyes and bit back what he was ready to say. They’d gotten Max back hadn’t they? That meant there was hope for other people too. Like all those kids that went dark side and never came back or even those freaks standing around in the robes lining up to be demon condos...

Alec glanced over the seats filled with dozing strangers. “Weird, isn’t it? Everyone just waking up and doing their thing. None of them know what almost happened out there. They’ll never know.”

“That’s a good thing.”

He considered what his father meant by that, but his instinct still insisted otherwise. “But what about the gate?” Alec pictured hundreds of others like it hidden all over the planet. “If we know about it, shouldn’t we try to tell as many people as we can?”

“Do you remember what you did when we told you who we were?”

Alec did remember actually. He'd told them that they were fucking lunatics.

“Don’t get me wrong, Alec. The spread of information is vital and what Logan does is important. But our kind of work will always be on the road.”

“B-But you’re just two people, you can’t do it all—"

“This isn’t going to be finished overnight,” Sam sighed. “We have to be in this for the long haul. It’s what the bad guys are doing and we have to play this game smart or it’s all lost.”

Alec thought of Ames White saying almost the same thing up there at the top of the tower. “No one even knows who you are,” he folded his arms into his damp jacket sleeves. “You saved everyone in this whole damn town. You should get a parade or a fat check from the mayor. Or something! It-It doesn’t seem fair.”

Sam’s response of a hard squeeze on the knee wasn’t an answer but Alec got the picture clear enough. The Winchesters didn’t operate on the adoring gratitude of the public that they kept safe. They worked in the dark and they moved there all alone.

Every day of their lives.

Alec’s coat was still wet after a few days of rain and worse. Shivering in the cold leather, he didn’t say a word when his father pushed into the seat next to him and put an arm around his shoulder. Alec shut his eyes and rested his head against the shuddering bus window. Fighting off sleep he drowsily considered all the other genetic markers that proved his biological origins.

He opened his eyes again to watch the dawn slowly stain the sky pink.

Much like his relatives, Alec wasn’t big on thank yous either.

 

 

 

~epilogue~

 

Max spent a lot of time trying not to stare at Sam and Dean.

Alec wasn’t sure if it was because of their legitimate family connection to him and what that also meant in an extended way to herself. Or it could have been just a healthy ingrained distrust for armed strangers. Alec on the other hand tried his best not to watch his family stare at her right back.

But it was a good thing Logan didn’t give a shit about who was staring at what.

All Eyes Only cared about was the fact that Max was willingly participating in bed rest and was drinking all the tea and soup provided. Alec helped feed her the morning tray of macrobiotic yogurt, canned fruit and wholegrain toast. When Alec wasn’t sleeping he’d been sitting by her bed a lot. The sight of her blood-shot and non-demonic eyes were a comfort every time they narrowed angrily in his direction.

She got better every day even if her mood got worse.

The bruises faded into sickly green and browns down her cheek and jaw. Her arms and legs healed as rapidly as the marks down her spine. Alec watched Doctor Shankar dress the wounds every day and helped Max get dressed back into the loathsome hospital smock she was forced to endure. He didn’t want to forget one single metal stitch in her skin. He wanted to remember that in the end she had still made a choice.

A choice that some day he might have to make too.

Despite their underground status Cindy was smuggled over for much needed medical supplies and some beers.

Alec didn’t know why the sight of her smiling like an idiot in the hallway made him want to cry. He kept hugging her even after he counted the allotted seconds that an average hug should last. Cindy held on to him too and it felt good to just stand there like that without any talking about gates, zombies or the last look in the black eye’s of a demon named Ames White. But Cindy brought more than booze and hypos.

Logan’s contacts had scattered and reformed sending emergency messages out like flares in the dark ever since the big event downtown. Max’s apartment had gotten several hits from friends looking for intel on the Space Needle Massacre (now dubbed by the Channel 5 news team) and Cindy brought them all packed in a laptop. Logan was quickly reestablishing his network and spreading the news on the underground of what had really happened out there. Less than a week after the gate had been sealed, Eyes Only did his first broadcast on the existence of the paranormal on his pirated 60 seconds of bandwidth.

And everyone listening out there in the dark sat up in notice.

Alec felt a giddy satisfaction at the response Logan immediately received from all the various factions of hunters and informants on the fringes. There were people out there that really believed every ludicrous detail and demanded to know more. Alec kept waiting for some admission from his family that the truth really did matter as a means to help more than just the individual.

But besides a few words of congratulation, Alec noticed his father and uncle weren't as excited by the news as everyone else seemed to be.

In the days following, Alec saw Sam sitting in Logan’s living room more and more often by himself. Dean also began disappearing out into the city for longer periods of time and coming back in the early morning hours while everyone slept. The Winchesters were getting restless, speaking in quiet voices as they went through Logan’s library and consulted map after map after map...

But Alec’s hours were filled with trips to various rooftops to jack satellite dishes and hack into a few larger ones sitting on nearby office buildings. By the end of the week Alec’s evenings were booked to deliver hand written documents that Logan didn’t even trust under his best encryption programs.

Somewhere between the hacking and the shady waterfront hook-ups, Sketchy caught Alec on his cell phone and said he missed him down at Crash. The stupid jerk told bad jokes until Alec laughed out loud for the first time in days. That same night Normal left a message that he was real sorry to hear about his grandmother but Cindy had explained the entire thing. Alec could return to work whenever he got back in town after the funeral. With a cut in his Christmas bonus of course.

Things almost felt like they could get back to usual again.

Except for the matter of his family.

When Alec’s attempts at conversation with his father grew more curt and awkward, he sought his uncle and only found the same withdrawn look in Dean’s eyes too. Instead of an easy smile Alec got questions. Dean suddenly wanted to know about that courier job he had downtown. Dean asked if it paid well and if Alec missed it. He asked about Cindy and Alec’s strange friend that lived alone with all the oil paintings in the empty house outside the gates of Terminal City.

Alec’s phone kept ringing distractingly while he attempted to give his uncle some answers. Dealers, friends, girls, they all heard he was back in town and required his attention… Dean’s consolatory pat on the shoulder left him alone to sort out his incoming calls. As he watched his uncle head out the front door and onto another mysterious errand, Alec felt like something important had been decided that he hadn’t been aware was up for consideration.

But before he could stop Dean to ask what it was, Logan announced the news they’d all been dying to hear.

The security grid was now clean enough for them all to start moving through the sectors like real people again. Alec wasn’t surprised to hear Dean immediately and happily declare that his car was waiting right outside the city limits. He said it was time to take off for the Canadian wilderness and vanish for a while. Alec tried not to notice that Dean wouldn’t look him in the eyes when he said it. He tried not to notice that Sam couldn’t look at him at all.

Although he’d avoided it ever since that night by the Needle, Alec let his mind open back up to the noise whispering all around him. With a tentative push he brushed at his father’s thoughts and searched for the peaceful light he’d found there every other time he’d dared try.

But this time it was closed off in silence.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a beautiful sunny day.

They all crammed into Logan’s van and took the long trip out past the sector points until the town dropped away and even the smell of the landfills fell off the breeze. Alec always forgot how impossibly green it became as soon as you traveled just a few minutes out. Dean had arranged for his car to be taken out of whatever storage it had been stashed away in for the detour into Seattle. The thing was bigger than Alec had expected. He let his hand trail across the black paint he’d only seen in his dreams before taking it away and stepping back.

The miles of pine forest and nothing but a stretch of dirt road made him feel small while he stood there and watched the Winchesters get ready to leave.

Sam still wasn’t saying much so Alec filled the silence with a weak joke instead. “How do you guys even afford to keep gas in this thing?”

“Difficult times call for horrific measures,” Dean gave a pained sigh. “A decade back or so, we had to switch out the original engine for something a little more… practical.”

The hood popped open to reveal the souped up hybrid contrivance that had been custom crafted out of the ample transmission. Dean looked highly ashamed by the polished machinery inside, but Alec was impressed by the fine interlock of electric and the muscle power of plain old fashioned combustion.

“So,” Dean held out his hand and Logan took it. “Keep fightin’ the good fight. Eyes Only must live to bitch and moan another day right?”

Logan took the playful punch to his bicep but didn’t return the favor. “Take it easy out there fellas. I’ll be watching out for you on the networks. Use the patches I gave you, they should block a lot of those police trackers that tag you from time to time. But I think you know what I think the best policy is tho?”

“I know, I know,” Dean laughed a little with him. “Ditch the car every few months and start from scratch. Easier said than done Logan. But you know how it is? Some girls just grow on ya no matter the hassle.”

Logan begrudgingly smiled back. “By the way, you gonna take those laptops I put together for you?”

“Oh yeah,” Dean brightened. “Thanks again for doing that. Our equipment was getting a little uh… what are the kids calling it these days?”

“Out-dated and useless?”

“The kids sure are judgmental and harsh.”

“You’re still using Windows.”

“What’s wrong with Windows?” Dean honestly wanted to know.

Logan let out a small sigh.

Alec listened to them argue about operating systems as they walked down the gravel road to the back of Logan’s van. Alec had scored a seat on top of a wood fence that once upon a time might have been used to keep horses. It gave him a perfect view of Sam. And staring at Sam packing the back of the car was his primary focus at the moment. He was getting ready to try out a new trick he’d had been practicing. So far the move had been performed without an audience but he’d been working on it every night and he’d gotten pretty good.

He had no idea why he cleared his throat first but he did it anyway.

**CAN YOU HEAR ME?**

Sam jerked upright and cracked his head on the underside of the trunk.

“Sorry,” Alec mumbled. “I guess that was a little more than I thought it’d be.”

His father turned around slowly, rubbing at his head and shoving the trunk closed.

“With this right here,” Alec tapped his forehead. “We can always catch up on the holidays right?”

“Sure,” Sam agreed. “Probably never even get a busy signal.”

Alec felt his mounting frustration start to shift into the anger he’d been trying to keep down all morning. “I mean, that’s why yer leaving me here right? It’s because- it’s because… well I dunno really why you’re leaving me here but it feels like that’s what you’re about to do.”

“Alec, this your home—“

“Stop,” Alec shook his head like it hurt. “Just stop saying whatever it is you are saying because its fucking bullshit, Sam!”

“I'm just telling you what I can see!” Sam shouted back.

“You know what I figured out in my short span of life out here so far?” Alec angrily slid off the fence. “That no one really needs anybody. But sometimes they like to have them around because they want them to be.”

Sam blinked down at him uncertainly.

“I know no one here needs me,” Alec shoved his hands in his pockets. “I-I just wanted you to know that if you ever, if- you ever wanted an extra hand that I’ll be here.”

“Alec…”

He looked up at the weird tone in his father’s voice.

Sam rubbed a knuckle at the spot between his eyes. “You know I got in a fight with my dad once about something just like this? I wanted to live my life and he just wanted what was in his plan. I don’t want to do that to you Alec, no matter how much I want you around.“

Alec realized they'd both stepped closer to each other.

“I know you don’t think much of your life around here,” Sam waved back towards the city “But you have a lot going on. I’m not talking about your job or that crap apartment either. You’ve got real friends here. Good friends. And Logan needs your help with his work. And I know you do it outside of the money he throws your way. You do it because you want to do what’s right. You want to help because you’re a good person.”

All the pretty green countryside blurred as Alec’s dragged his sleeve across his eyes.

“Your mom would have been really glad,” Sam nodded. “She would have been real proud to have a son like you.”

Alec didn’t know what to do. His heart was pounding, his face hurt and his eyes felt hot and wet. He couldn’t stop his hands from reaching out towards his father but the man had already closed the distance and was crushing him into his arms. Alec didn’t mind being unable to breathe. He didn’t care about the indignity of being lifted off the ground. He didn’t care if anyone saw them. He didn’t even care that he was crying even though all he mostly felt was so happy that he thought he might pass out.

“I want to go,” Alec blurted. “With you. I want to go with you and Dean.”

“What?” Sam dropped him back onto the ground and wiped fiercely at his own eyes. “Alec, please understand. This life isn’t fun. W-We live in a car for Christ’s sake. I want something else for you, I want--”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alec eagerly reached for the passenger side door. “Your concerns have been documented.”

“No way.” Sam shouldered him aside.

Alec felt his eyes blur again but this time in frustration.

“You can get in the back.”

Alec thought that laughter through tears was as magical an emotion as the hallmark card companies said it was.

Dean didn’t look all that shocked by the sight of Alec testing out the backseat like a brand new couch. In fact, he just cast his brother a sideways look and pointed complacently into Sam’s happy yet tear streaked face. “You owe me twenty bucks.”

Alec gave Logan a wave before his van pulled away down the empty road. Logan hadn’t looked all that surprised that he was driving back alone either. Alec thought of the weird e-mail he could send Max later. Cindy too. He’d tell them he’d decided to hit the road for a while and he’d see them again whenever they drove back this way.

Whenever that happened to be.

The sudden realm of unlimited possibilities made Alec feel more free than he had ever had in a long time. Alec sat back on worn leather seats and listened to the refurnished rumble of the engine. He stretched out with his mind and tried his jedi mind trick again.

You think Dean’ll ever let me drive this thing?

Sam piled four Canadian providences worth of road maps into the back seat along with a flashlight. Maybe when you get a little older.

Alec tossed the maps over his shoulder and looked longingly at the drivers seat. How much older?

“Like another twenty years older,” Dean answered. "And that's only if I croak off first."

Sam and Alec blinked at each other in shock.

“You can hear us?” A smile of amazement lit up Sam’s face. “Really?”

“Some of it,” Dean muttered with a scratch at his head. “And talking right in front of me is totally rude by the way.”

“All these years I’ve tried talking to you and every single time all you got was a nose bleed.”

“Yeah well, not anymore,” Dean shrugged and glanced back at Alec. “I think the kid closes the circuit. Maybe. Who knows? Who cares. It works and now we can get rid of all those overpriced family cell phone plans.”

Alec’s stunned smile cracked into a real one as he fell back into the seat, the engine sending him backwards with the tumble of maps and bags. He rolled his two windows down even though it was a little cold.

For once in his life he was going to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

“So,” he grinned. “Where we headed?”

“Blue Earth, Minnesota.” Dean said with a flick to the rear view. "Great little town."

“Minnesota?” Alec repeated in disappointment. “What’s out there worth seeing?”

“An old friend,” Dean tapped in an ancient cassette tape into the player. “That’s who.”

Alec loved old friends.

They were his favorite.

 

 

the end  
(but not)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End. Or is it? No. This Verse continues so Much. And? It's all completed. The all just getting started.
> 
> Continued in 'The Aftershocks':  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/16973790/chapters/39893430


End file.
